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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


READINGS  IN 
VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


EDITED  BY 

MEYER  BLOOMFIELD 

DIRECTOR   OF   THE    VOCATION    BUREAU    OF    BOSTON 


GINN  AND  COMPANY 

BOSTON     •    NEW  YORK     •    CHICAGO     •    LONDON 
ATLANTA     •     DALLAS     •     COLUMBUS     •     SAN    FRANCISCO 


Ti 

COPYRIGHT,  1915,  BY  MEYER  BLOOMFIELD 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

3'5-7 


<Et)t 

CIXN  AND  COMPANY  •  HKO- 
PRIETORS  •  BOSTON  •  U.S.A. 


Library 

HF 


0". 


TO 

A.  LINCOLN  FILENE 


926545 


PREFACE 

A  new  literature  has  come  into  being  within  the  present  decade. 
Indeed  just  seven  years  have  passed  since  Professor  Frank  Parsons 
gave  the  closing  years  of  his  life  to  the  Vocation  Bureau  of  the 
Civic  Service  House  in  Boston. 

From  that  beginning  the  vocational-guidance  movement  and  its 
literature  have  grown  apace,  in  definiteness,  in  insight,  and  in 
service.  To  be  sure,  the  aims  of  vocational  guidance  are  nothing 
new  in  either  educational  statement  or  practice.  The  starting  of 
youth  aright  in  life  work  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  human  interests. 
Not  for  centuries  later  did  this  interest  receive  so  complete  an  ex- 
pression as  in  the  practices  of  the  more  enlightened  medieval  guilds 
of  England  and  Germany. 

Before  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century,  however,  youth  in 
quest  of  a  life-career  was  regaled  with  the  familiar  literature  of  .the 
"  How  to  Succeed  "  type,  which  naively  reflected  the  uncritical  indi- 
vidualism of  an  age  that  is  gone.  That  type  of  vocational  monitor 
is  still  a  frequent  apparition,  amidst  the  realistic  productions  of  a 
wiser  outlook  on  life. 

What  is  vocational  guidance  ?  Briefly  it  is  organized  common 
sense  used  to  help  each  individual  make  the  most  of  his  abilities 
and  opportunities. 

Vocational  guidance  aims  to  make  both  school  and  occupation 
help  boys  and  girls  to  discover  and  develop  their  powers  for  serv- 
ice, through  school  programs  in  charge  of  specially  trained  voca- 
tional counselors  in  schools  and  employment  programs  in  charge 
of  specially  trained  employment  supervisors  in  the  occupations. 
Vocational  guidance  is  not  a  scheme  of  finding  jobs ;  of  forcing 
vocational  decisions  upon  children ;  of  nai'vely  adjusting  human 
"pegs"  to  "holes" ;  or  of  narrowing  the  range  of  service  open  to 
the  fit.  In  a  word,  it  is  clear  that  through  thoughtful  study  of  the 
problems  of  life  work  and  its  choice  and  through  creative  sympathy 


vi  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

real  help  may  be  given,  where  help  is  now  wanting,  to  thousands 
of  perplexed  youths  groping  through  the  complex  conditions  and 
demands  of  the  twentieth  century. 

About  half  of  America's  school  children  quit  school  for  work 
before  they  have  even  finished  the  grades  of  the  elementary  school. 
These  children  usually  decide  to  leave  of  their  own  accord ;  they 
alone  make  the  momentous  decisions  as  to  why  and  when  they  will 
leave  school,  what  job  they  will  go  into,  and  how  soon  they  will 
quit  one  job  for  another.  Home,  school,  and  employer  are  of  little 
influence  in  these  grave  decisions  so  vital  to  the  future  of  these 
children  and  our  citizenship.  Thousands  drift  aimlessly  through 
school,  through  work,  and  through  life.  Where  so  many  work- 
beginners  seek  jobs  rather  than  opportunities  for  a  life  work,  there 
can  be  no  foundation  for  a  right  attitude  toward  work. 

Pleas  for  interest  in  work,  loyalty,  esprit  de  corps,  training,  and 
efficiency  fall  on  barren  ground.  The  best  proof  of  wasteful  drift 
in  work  may  be  found  in  the  large  numbers  of  places  held  by  chil- 
dren during  their  early  working  years,  and  in  the  excessive  turn- 
over of  the  working  force  of  the  average  establishment.  This 
frequent  change  in  employees,  this  human  "  turnover,"  is  waste 
to  the  child  during  the  decisive  years  of  adolescence,  waste  to  his 
family,  to  his  employer,  and  to  society. 

Obviously  the  situation  just  described  is  not  only  costly  and 
wasteful,  it  is  needless  and  in  large  part  preventable.  To  allow  it 
to  go  on  in  the  vain  hope  that  somehow  boys  and  girls  will  eventu- 
ally find  themselves  rightly  located  in  the  work  of  the  world,  is  to 
shut  one's  eyes  to  the  obvious.  Such  a  situation  in  the  twentieth 
century  is  wholly  at  variance  with  its  conservation  spirit. 

The  main  problem,  then,  is  to  bridge  the  gap  between  school 
and  the  after-school  life  of  our  future  workers  and  citizens.  The 
solution  of  this  problem  means  making  school  life  more  interesting 
and  purposeful,  and  working  life  more  educative  and  productive. 

As  the  result  of  the  vocational-guidance  movement,  there  is  now 
a  country-wide  endeavor  to  help  children  make  their  start  in  life 
with  purpose,  preparation,  and  insight.  Hundreds  of  schools  and 
philanthropic  agencies  are  either  carrying  on  vocational-guidance 
projects  or  planning  to  do  so. 


PREFACE  vii 

Nearly  a  score  of  colleges,  universities,  and  other  institutions 
are  conducting  special  or  part-time  courses  in  vocational  guidance. 
The  first  college  course  given  in  this  subject  was  that  at  the  Harvard 
University  Summer  School  in  191 1  by  the  Vocation  Bureau. 

There  is  plentiful  testimony  showing  that,  as  a  result  of  the 
vocational-guidance  movement,  fathers  and  mothers  now  turn  to 
the  schools  as  never  before  for  advice  and  help  concerning  their 
children's  future.  The  abilities,  the  interests,  faults,  and  promising 
tendencies  in  the  children  are  topics  of  grave  discussion  between 
parent  and  teacher  or  principal,  the  viewpoint  being  not  only  that  of 
present  school  requirements  but  also  that  of  the  probable  careers  of 
the  children.  School  programs,  and  even  commencement-day  pro- 
grams, have  begun  to  show  how  schools  are  facing  the  challenging 
world,  which  is  soon  to  claim  the  productive  years  of  these  children. 

Already  teachers,  on  their  own  initiative  and  with  an  expendi- 
ture of  much  time  and  energy,  have  gone  into  the  homes  of  their 
pupils  and  have  sought  to  get  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  indus- 
trial environment.  If  our  schools  are  to  have  any  guiding  relation 
to  life  (and  all  educational  reform  clamors  for  this  relation),  teachers 
must  be  given  every  incentive  to  touch  in  such  personal  ways  the 
realities  of  the  lives  which  their  pupils  will  experience. 

The  material  of  the  present  volume,  as  contrasted  with  the  earlier 
"  success  "  order  of  books,  embraces  some  of  the  more  significant 
vocational-guidance  utterances  in  terms  of  the  twentieth-century 
spirit.  The  citations  have  been  arranged  with  a  view  to  developing 
the  subject  of  vocational  guidance  in  a  logical  and  comprehensive 
fashion.  Much  more  might  have  been  included,  had  not  the  limits 
of  this  volume,  already  of  fair  proportions,  necessitated  a  reluctant 
setting  aside  of  much  valuable  material.  The  volume  has  been 
prepared  with  the  hope  that  it  may  stimulate  the  reader  to  pursue 
the  study  of  vocational  guidance  itself,  and  to  follow  it  also  in  re- 
lated fields  of  economics,  psychology,  education,  and  social  service. 

Thanks  are  due  to  the  authors  and  publishers  named  in  the 
table  of  contents  for  generous  permission  to  use  their  contributions. 

MEYER  BLOOMFIELD 
VOCATION  BUREAU,  BOSTON 


CONTENTS 


^* 


PART  I.    THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

PAGE 

e  Value,  during  Education,  of  the  Life-Career  Motive.  President 
Emeritus  Charles  W.  Eliot.  (Address  at  the  National  Education  Asso- 
ciation meeting,  1910) I 


Vocational  Guidance.  President  Richard  C.  Maclaurin,  Massachusetts  In- 
stitute of  Technology.  (Address  at  the  First  National  Conference  on 
Vocational  Guidance,  Boston,  1910) 13 

The  Social  Waste  of  Unguided  Personal  Ability.  Erville  B.  Woods,  Dart- 
mouth College.  (American  Journal  of  Sociology,  November,  1913)  .  .  .  19 

The   Wasteful   Recruiting   of   Trades    and   Occupations.      N.   B.  Dearie. 

("  Industrial  Training,"  chap,  xv,  P.  S.  King  &  Son,  London,  1914)    .     .       32 

The  Larger  Educational  Bearings  of  Vocational  Guidance.  George  Herbert 
Mead,  Professor  of  Philosophy,  The  University  of  Chicago.  (Address 
at  the  Third  National  Conference  on  Vocational  Guidance,  Grand  Rapids, 
Michigan,  1913) 43 

The  Industrial  Factor  in  Education.  Ernest  N.  Henderson,  Professor  of 
Psychology  and  Education,  Adelphi  College,  Brooklyn,  New  York.  (Re- 
port of  the  Committee  on  the  Place  of  Industries  in  Public  Education  to 
the  National  Council  of  Education,  July,  1910) 56 

Problems  of  Vocational  Guidance.  Superintendent  F.  E.  Spaulding,  Min- 
neapolis. (Address  at  the  Department  of  Superintendence,  Cincinnati, 
Ohio,  1915) 69 

The  Schools  and  Vocational  Guidance.  John  V.  Brennan,  Superintendent  of 

Schools,  Ironwood,  Michigan.   (American  Schoolmaster,  September,  1914)       75 

Vocational  Guidance  in  the  Boston  Schools.    Stratton  D.  Brooks,  President 
\s           of  the  University  of  Oklahoma.    (Address  at  the  First  National  Confer- 
ence on  Vocational  Guidance,  Boston,  November,  1910) 83 

'ocational  Guidance  and  Public  Education.    Paul  H.  Hanus,  Professor  of 
Education,  Harvard  University.   (The  School  Review,  January,  1911)      .     .       92 


x  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

PAGE 

The  University  and  Vocational  Guidance.  E.  L.  Thorndike,  Professor  of 
Educational  Psychology,  Teachers  College,  Columbia  University.  (Ad- 
dress at  the  Alumni  Conference  at  Teachers  College,  1913)  ....  96 

Suggestions  toward  a  Tenable  Theory  of  Vocational  Guidance.  H.  D.  Kitson, 
Associate  in  Psychology,  The  University  of  Chicago.  (Manual  Training 
and  Vocational  Education,  January,  1915) 103 

Necessity  of  Professional  Training  for  Vocational  Counseling.  Frederick 
G.  Bonser,  Director  Industrial  Arts,  Teachers  College,  Columbia  Uni- 
versity. (Address  at  the  Third  National  Conference  on  Vocational 
Guidance,  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan,  1913) 109 

PART  II.    THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Briefs  of  Papers  on  Vocational  Guidance.   (Read  before  the  Boston  Masters' 

Association,  November,  1912) 117 

'ocational  Guidance  in  Cincinnati.  'Frank  P.  Goodwin.  (Address  before 
the  Ohio  State  High  School  Teachers'  Association  at  Columbus,  Ohio, 
December  29,  1913) 129 

Constant  and  Variable  Occupations  and  their  Bearing  on  Problems  of 
Vocational  Education.  Leonard  P.  Ayres.  (Russell  Sage  Foundation 
publications) 141 

Some  Conditions  affecting  Problems  of  Industrial  Education  in  Seventy- 
eight  American  School  Systems.  Leonard  P.  Ayres.  (Russell  Sage 
Foundation  publications) 150 

The  Vocational  Interests,  Study  Habits,  and  Amusements  of  the  Pupils  in 
Certain  High  Schools  in  Iowa.  Irving  King,  State  University  of  Iowa. 
(The  School  Review,  March,  1914) 172 

An  Inquiry  into  Vocational  Aims  of  High-School  Pupils.  Miss  Bessie 
D.  Davis,  of  the  Somerville  High  School.  (From  a  tentative  report  to 
the  Superintendent  of  Schools,  Somerville,  Mass.,  and  to  the  Vocation 
Bureau  of  Boston) 190 

Shall  Elective  Courses  be  established  in  the  Seventh  and  Eighth  Grades 
of  the  Elementary  School  ?  District  Superintendent  I.  E.  Goldwasser, 
Manhattan,  New  York.  (Psychological  Clinic,  January,  1914)  ....  200 

Charting  Childhood  in  Cincinnati.  Dr.  Helen  Thompson  Woolley,  Bureau 
of  Vocational  Guidance,  Child  Labor  Department,  Cincinnati  Public 
Schools.  (Survey,  August,  1913) 220 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

Work,  Wages,  and  Schooling  of  Eight  Hundred  Iowa  Boys  in  Relation 
to  the  Problems  of  Vocational  Guidance.  Ervin  E.  Lewis,  Associate 
Professor  of  Education.  (Published  by  the  University,  Iowa  City,  Iowa)  234 

A  Study  of  the  Vocational  Guidance  of  Grammar-School  Pupils.  Ellen  M. 
Greany,  Hugh  O'Brien  School,  Boston.  '(Prepared  for  the  Seminary  in 
Elementary  Education  in  Harvard  University  and  for  Tufts  College. 
Printed  in  Educational  Administration  and  Supervision,  March,  1915)  .  267 

Vocational  Guidance.  (Report  of  the  Committee  on  High  Schools  and  Train- 
ing Schools,  Board  of  Education,  New  York  City,  1914)  288 

The  Occupations  of  College  Graduates  as  influenced  by  the  Undergraduate 
Course.  Dean  Frederick  P.  Keppel,  Columbia  College,  New  York. 
(Educational  Review,  December,  1910) 346 

Practical  Arts  and  Vocational  Guidance.  C.  A.  Prosser,  Secretary  of  the 
National  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education.  (Manual 
Training  Magazine,  February,  1913) 352 

Selecting  Young  Men  for  Particular  Jobs.   Herman  Schneider,  Dean  of  the 
>^  College  of  Engineering,  University  of  Cincinnati.   (American  Machinist, 

.April,  1913) 368 

Effect  of  Noise,  Fatigue,  and  Environment  on  Worker.   Herman  Schneider, 

Dean  of  the  College  of  Engineering,  University  of  Cincinnati  ....     379 

The  Permanence  of  Interests  and  their  Relation  to  Abilities.  Edward  L. 
Thorndike,  Teachers  College,  Columbia  University.  (Popular  Science 
Monthly,  November,  1912) 386 

Opportunities  in  School  and  Industry  for  Children  of  the  Stockyards 
District.  Ernest  L.  Talbert.  (Report  of  an  Investigation  carried  on 
under  the  Direction  of  the  Board  of  The  University  of  Chicago  Settle- 
ment, 1912)  396 

The  American  Girl  in  the  Stockyards  District.  Louise  Montgomery.  (Ex- 
tracts from  an  Investigation  carried  on  under  the  Direction  of  the  Board 
of  The  University  of  Chicago  Settlement  and  the  Chicago  Alumnas  Club 
of  The  University  of  Chicago,  1913) 454 

The  School  and  the  Working-Child.  Sophonisba  P.  Breckinridge  and  Edith 
Abbott,  Directors,  Department  of  Social  Investigation.  (Report  to  the 
Chicago  Woman's  Club,  the  Chicago  Association  of  Collegiate  Alumnae, 
and  the  Woman's  City  Club) 485 

What  we  need  to  know  about  Occupations.  Dr.  Charles  R.  Richards,  Direc- 
tor, Cooper  Union,  New  York.  (Address  at  the  Second  National 
Conference  on  Vocational  Guidance,  New  York,  1913) 504 


xii  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

PART  III.    EXAMPLES  OF  VOCATIONAL  INFORMATION 

PAGE 

The  Architect.    ("  Vocations  for  Boys,"  publication  of  the  Vocation  Bureau 

of  Boston) 515 

The  Grocer.    ("  Vocations  for  Boys'"  publication  of  the  Vocation  Bureau 

of  Boston) 523 

The  Machinist.   ("  Vocations  for  Boys,"  publication  of  the  Vocation  Bureau 

of  Boston) 534 

Occupations  and  Industries  open  to  Children  between  Fourteen  and  Sixteen 

Years  of  Age.    Anne  Davis.    (Board  of  Education,  Chicago,  1914)      .     .     542 

Telephone  Operating.     (Issued   by  the  Girls'  Trade    Education   League, 

Boston,  Massachusetts) 557 

Survey  of  Occupations  open  to  the  Girl  of  Fourteen  to  Sixteen  Years. 
Harriet  Hazen  Dodge.  (Publications  of  the  Girls'  Trade  Education 
League,  Boston,  Massachusetts) 571 

Juvenile  Employment  in  the  Building  Trades.    Ernest  Aves.    (Report  of  an 

Inquiry  into  the  Conditions  of  Juvenile  Employment  in  London)        .     .     602 

Conditions  of  Juvenile  Employment  in  the  Ready-Made  Women's  Clothing 
Trades  in  London,  in  the  Spring  of  1911.  Miss  Collet,  Senior  Investi- 
gator for  Women's  Industries 647 

Conditions  of  Juvenile  Employment  in  the  Bookbinding  and  Stationery 
Trades  (Girls)  in  London,  October,  1911  —  March,  1912.  Miss  Collet, 
Senior  Investigator  for  Women's  Industries 666 

PART  IV.    SOME  PRACTICAL  ASPECTS  OF  VOCATIONAL 
GUIDANCE 

Vocational  Guidance  and  Employment  in  Birmingham.  Meyer  Bloomfield 
("  The  School  and  the  Start  in  Life,"  United  States  Bureau  of  Education 
Bulletin,  1914) 679 

Medical  Inspection  at  the  Start  in  Life.    Meyer  Bloomfield.    ("  The  School 

and  the  Start  in  Life,"  United  States  Bureatf  of  Education  Bulletin,  1914)     704 

School  and  Employment.    Meyer  Bloomfield.    ("  The  School  and  the  Start 

in  Life,"  United  States  Bureau  of  Education  Bulletin,  1914) 711 

INDEX 721 


O  F    A  L  L 

TRADES, 

DIGESTED     IN 

ALPHABETICAL  ORDER: 

BY     WHICH 

PARENTS,  GUARDIANS,  and  TRUSTEES, 
may,  with  greater  Eafe  and  Certainty,  make  choice 
of  TRADES  agreeable  to  the  Capacity,  Education, 
Inclination,  Strength,  and  Fortune  of  the  YOUTH 
under  their  Care. 

0    • 

CONTAINING,     .-.* 


I.  How  many  Branches  each  is 
divided  into. 

II.  How  far   populous,  or  ne- 
cefTary. 

III.  Which  they  require  mo/h,: 
Learning,  Art,  or  Labour.  * ' 

IV.  What  is  commonly  given 
•with  an  Apprentice  to  each. 

V.  Hours  of  Working,and  other 
Cuftoms  ufual  among  them. 

VI.  Their Wages,and  how  much 


may  be  earned  by,  or  a 
commonly  given  to,  Journey- 
men. .  • 

VII.  AcVJiat  Money  is  neceflary 
•    io.fet.up*A*Perfon  in  each. 
Vin.  Which  are  incorporated 
Companies,  with  the  Time 
of   Uieir  Incorporation,  Li- 
very-fine, Situation  of  their 
Hall,  Court-day,  Defcriptioa 
of  their  Arms,  Mottos,  &c. 


To  which  is  Prefixed, 

ESS  AY  on  DIVINITY,  LAW,  and  PHYSIC. 


LONDON: 

Printed  for  T.  WALLER,  at  the  Crown  and  Mitrtt 
oppofite  Fitter-lane,  Flttt-finet.   MDCCXLYII. 

TITLE-PAGE  OF  A  FORERUNNER  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

This  and  the  two  following  facsimiles  are  reproduced  from  a  "  contemporary  ancestor  "  in 
vocational  guidance,  in  the  Astor  Library  collection  of  the  New  York  Public  Library 


PREFACE. 


Palm  and  Time  /pent  in  compiling 
this  lit  tit  Book  were  greater  than  at  frfl 
can  be  conceived,  but  which  will  more 
fully  appear  on  the  Perufal,  by  the  great 

__    Variety  of  Matters    occurring,    <which 

were  to  be  obtained  by  Perfonal  Enquiries  only  :  How 
<tuell  executed,  and  of  what  Advantage  they  may  bet 
the  Public  ivi//  km-ut  by  Time  and  Experience. 

It  may  be  truly  faidt  that  the  greatcjl  Part  of  tbil 
Work  Is  entirely  new. 

The  Ufa  of  if  pretty  well  appear  by  the  Title, 
which,  I  doubt  not  in  the  leaft,  will  vnfwer  the  chief 
End  propo/ed,  that  of  giving  Parents,  Guardians,  and 
Truftee5,  at  well  as  the  Youths .  themfelves,  intended 
for  Trades  and  Buftneft,  not  only  a  general  Defcrlf- 
tion  of  almojt  all  Handicrafts,  Trades,  and  Employs 
1/1  Vogue,  but  alfo  fuch'P'articufarj  of  them,  as  tui/i 
enable  both  the  one  and  the  other  to  form  a  tolerable 
Judgment  which  of  them  all  may  be  mojl  agreeable* 
and  bejt  an/wer  their  Purpofe. 

And,  pray  noiut  'what  Step  in  Life  is  of  greater  Con- 
fequence,  than  the  well  placing-out  your  Offering  in 
Bvfineft  ?  Does  not  their  future  Well-doing  very  much 
depend  upon  this  ?  Hoiu  many  hopeful  Youths  ha've  been 
ruined,  by  being  put  to  Trades,  or  Callings,  either  Im- 
proper for  them,  or  they  unjit  for  ?  But  now,  V»  fre- 
fumed,  thefplitting  on  that  Rotk  may,  in  a  great  Mea- 
fure,  be  prei'tnttd:  Therefore,  *  tit  hoped,  our  Endea- 
vour! ov///  mttt  with  Approbation. 

The 


PREFACE. 

The  Matters  relating  to  thefeveral  City  Companies, 
•we  apprehend,  will  be  found  not  only  ufeful,  tut  enter- 
taining, they  being  no  tubere  digtfttd  in  fo  full,  jet 
toncift  and  methodical  a  Manner:  Nay,  indeed,  the 
Whole,  being  reduced  into  Order  of  Alphabet,  mtift 
render  the  Infpeflion  of  any  Particular,  at  all  times, 
at  ready  at  pojjible :  And  to  be  able  to  compart  one 
Trade  or  Bufinefs  'with  another,  and  injtantly  to  fee  the 
•vaft  Difference!  between  fuch  Variety  of  them,  mujl  be 
no  left  amujtng  and  injIruRive  :  In  Jhort,  jointly  ozfe- 
farately,  it  may  be  taken  as  an  hiitoncal  Abridgment 
of  Mechanic  and  Mercantile  Affairs. 

Noiv  there  remains  only  for  me  to'requejl  the  candid 
Reader,  that,  upon  hit  meeting  with  here  and  there 
feme  little  things,  that  may  not  exaflly  tally  'with  bit 
Knowledge  or  Judgment ',  he  will  not  immediately  con- 
demn the  Whole,  or  major  Part,  which  he  kno-ius  no- 
thing of:  But  confider  bow  many  different  Perfons 
tnuft  have  been  confulted,  to  gain  fa  much  Intelligence  at 
it  herein  communicated ;  and  add  to  this  the  Oddneft 
and  Variety  of  Men's  Tempers,  on  being  ajked  three  or 
four  civil  Quejlions,  the  anfivering  which  was  no 
Trouble,  nor  could  -be  aty  Detriment ;  yet  fame  were 
Jhyt  others  jealous  $  fometejly^  others  four  ;  nay,  fame 
quite  angry,  thinking  one  was  come  as  a  Spy  to  jteal  the 
Secrets  of  their  Trade;  And,  bejides  all  this,  frveral  of 
the  fame  Trade  or  Bufinels  •were  met  witht  who  gave 
very  different  Accounts. 

Therefore,  if  any  intelligent  Perfons  will,  on  finding 
any  thing  material  amtfs,  or  omitted,  be  fo  good  as  to 
minute  it  down,  and  fend  it  to  the  Bookfeller,  it  Jhall 
be  carefully  correQedor  infer  ted,  and  the  Favour  graft' 
fully  acAnoiv/edged,  in  our  next  Edition. 

The  AUTHOR. 


A  N 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL 
GUIDANCE 

PART  I.    THE  VIEWPOINT  OF 
VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

THE  VALUE  DURING  EDUCATION  OF  THE 
LIFE-CAREER  MOTIVE 

BY  CHARLES  W.  ELIOT,  PRESIDENT  EMERITUS  OF  HARVARD 
UNIVERSITY 

(An  Address  delivered  to  the  National  Education  Association,  Boston,  1910) 

The  teaching  profession  nowadays  fully  recognizes  the  fact  that 
only  those  processes  of  education  are  successful  which  procure  the 
active  interest  and  cooperation  of  the  minds  and  wills  subjected  to 
them.  During  early  school  life  the  intelligent  teacher  tries  in  every 
way  to  rouse  and  maintain  the  interest  of  the  pupil  in  the  subjects 
of  study,  and  endeavors  to  select  studies  for  the  individual  pupil 
which  are  likely  to  hold  his  interest.  For  many  children  this 
animating  and  selective  task  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  is  a  difficult 
one ;  and  for  the  great  majority  of  American  children  of  from 
twelve  to  sixteen  years  of  age  the  schools  fail  to  perform  it.  Hence, 
multitudes  of  American  children,  taking  no  interest  in  their  school 
work,  or  seeing  no  connection  between  their  studies  and  the  means 
of  later  earning  a  good  livelihood,  drop  out  of  school  far  too  early  of 
their  own  accord,  or  at  least  offer  no  effective  resistance  to  the  desire 
of  unwise  parents  that  they  stop  study  and  go  to  work.  Moreover, 
from  lack  of  interest  they  acquire  while -in  school  a  listless  way  of 
working.  Again,  interest  in  their  studies  is  not  universal  among  that 
small  proportion  of  American  children  who  go  on  into  a  secondary 


school ;  and  in  every  college  a  perceptible  proportion  of  the  students 
exhibit  a  languid  interest,  or  no  interest,  in  their  studies,  and  there- 
fore bring  little  to  pass  during  the  very  precious  years  of  college  life. 

There  are,  however,  certain  regions  in  the  total  field  of  American 
education  in  which  the  internal  motive  of  interest  in  the  work 
comes  into  full  play,  with  the  most  admirable  results.  In  general, 
professional  students  in  the  United  States  exhibit  keen  interest  in 
their  studies,  work  hard,  advance  rapidly,  and  avail  themselves  of 
their  opportunities  to  gain  knowledge  and  skill  to  the  utmost  limit 
of  their  strength  and  capacity,  no  matter  whether  the  profession 
for  which  they  are  preparing  be  divinity,  law,  medicine,  architecture, 
engineering,  forestry,  teaching,  business,  or  corporation  service. 
In  secondary  education  the  high  schools  of  commerce  and  mechanic 
arts  have  a  decided  advantage  as  regards  motive  power  within  the 
pupil  over  the  ordinary  high  schools.  The  industrial  schools,  trade 
schools,  continuation  schools,  evening  and  summer  schools,  busi- 
ness colleges,  and  Y.M.C.A.  classes  in  secular  subjects  show  a 
large  proportion  of  strongly  interested  pupils.  The  part-time  schools 
which  some  of  the  great  corporations,  like  the  General  Electric 
Company,  the  New  York  Central  Railroad,  the  Grand  Trunk 
Railway,  the  Ludlow  Manufacturing  Associates,  the  Yale  and  Towne 
Manufacturing  Company,  and  the  International  Harvester  Com- 
pany have  been  conducting  for  a  few  years  past  have  no  difficulty 
in  interesting  their  pupils  in  those  academic  subjects  which  make 
part  of  their  general  shop  instruction.  When  one  goes  through  the 
shops  and  schoolrooms  of  Hampton  Institute,  where  hundreds  of 
negroes  and  scores  of  Indians  are  under  instruction,  or  through  the 
working-rooms  of  the  Tuskegee  Institute,  thronged  with  negroes  of 
all  shades,  one  is  struck  with  the  eager  application  to  the  work  in 
hand  which  is  exhibited  by  the  students.  One  sees  no  loafing  or 
inattention,  or  uninterested  work.  Everyone,  whether  bright  or  dull, 
seems  to  be  doing  his  best,  and  to  be  doing  it  with  hearty  good 
will.  What  is  the  motive  power  in  the  mind  and  will  of  the  pupil 
or  student  in  all  these  various  successful  educational  institutions  ? 
It  is  the  motive  of  the  life-career. 

A  professional  student  has  chosen  his  life-career.  A  pupil  in  a 
commercial  high  school  or  a  mechanic-arts  high  school  has  made 


LIFE-CAREER  MOTIVE  IN  EDUCATION  3 

a  primary  decision  with  regard  to  his  life-career ;  he  has  deter- 
mined the  first  direction  of  his  preparatory  work,  although  later  he 
may  come  to  branchings  of  the  way  where  a  new  decision  will  be 
needed.  The  apprentice  in  a  railroad  shop  or  an  electric  works  has 
in  like  manner  decided  on  one  kind  of  a  life-career,  and  is  bent  on 
pursuing  it  to  advantage.  The  journeyman  who  has  chosen  one 
of  the  fundamental  trades  enlists  in  a  public  or  endowed  evening 
school  or  a  Y.M.C.A.  class  with  the  purpose  of  improving  himself 
in  his  trade  or  art,  and  believes  that  good  work  in  the  school  will 
increase  his  earning  capacity.  The  negro  or  Indian  student  at 
Hampton  sees  clearly  that  the  studies  and  labors  of  the  place  will 
make  him  a  better  farmer,  or  a  carpenter,  mason,  or  wheelwright 
with  good  earning  capacity ;  and  he  has  decided  to  fit  himself  as 
well  as  he  possibly  can  for  some  one  of  these  gainful  occupations. 
The  apprenticeship  method  in  education,  though  slow  and  liable  to 
great  abuses,  produced  for  many  centuries  highly  skilled  workmen, 
who  acquired  all  the  accumulated  skill  of  preceding  generations 
and  transmitted  it  with  additions  to  the  next.  When,  under  the 
factory  system,  apprenticeship  almost  disappeared,  it  turned  out 
that  a  successful  method  of  education  on  a  large  scale  had  been 
well-nigh  lost.  Its  success  was  due  to  the  continuous  play  of  the 
motive  of  the  life-career.  The  intelligent  leaders  of  American 
industries  are  now  trying  to  recover  the  apprenticeship  system  with 
the  modifications  made  necessary  by  the  factory  system.  The 
students  in  a  university  summer  school,  a  business  college,  or 
a  technical  school  are,  as  a  rule,  persons  who  have  chosen  their 
calling,  and  believe  that  by  taking  appropriate  additional  instruction 
they  can  further  themselves  in  that  calling. 

Of  the  pupils  or  students  in  all  these  educational  institutions 
which  give  full  play  to  the  motive  of  the  life-career,  from  the 
lowest  industrial  evening  school  to  the  highest  professional  school, 
that  delightful  thing  can  be  said  which  Mr.  Shrigley,  President  of 
the  Williamson  Free  School  of  Mechanical  Trades  near  Phila- 
delphia, said  in  1908  about  trade  schools  : 

The  young  men  who  are  being  trained  in  a  properly  conducted  school  of 
that  type  show  great  interest  in  their  work,  and  are  so  enthusiastically  devoted 
to  it  that  their  progress  is  wonderfully  rapid  and  gratifying. 


4  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Indeed,  on  account  of  this  enthusiasm  and  rapid  progress  among 
the  students  or  pupils  of  such  institutions,  earnest  teachers  always 
enjoy  working  in  them,  and  teachers  who  work  both  in  schools  where 
the  life-career  motive  is  recognized,  and  in  those  schools  where  it 
is  not,  invariably  find  the  first  sort  of  school  more  interesting  and 
inspiring  than  the  second. 

We  ought  not  to  be  surprised  that  schools  which  avail  themselves 
of  this  strong  motive  get  the  best  work  from  their  pupils,  and  there- 
fore do  the  best  work  for  the  community.  All  of  us  adults  do  our 
best  work  in  the  world  under  the  impulsion  of  the  life-career  motive. 
Indeed,  the  hope  and  purpose  of  improving  quality,  or  quantity,  or 
both  in  our  daily  work,  with  the  incidental  improvement  of  the  live- 
lihood, form  the  strongest  inducements  we  adults  have  for  steady, 
productive  labor ;  and  the  results  of  labors  so  motived  are  not  neces- 
sarily mercenary,  or  in  any  way  unworthy  of  an  intelligent  and 
humane  person.  There  is  nothing  low  or  mean  about  these  motives, 
and  they  lead  on  the  people  who  are  swayed  by  them  to  greater 
serviceableness  and  greater  happiness  —  to  greater  serviceableness, 
because  the  power  and  scope  of  individual  productiveness  are  thereby 
increased  ;  to  greater  happiness,  because  achievement  will  become 
more  frequent  and  more  considerable,  and  to  old  and  young  alike 
happiness  in  work  comes  through  achievement. 

We  come  here  upon  the  ancient  controversy  between  pure  and 
applied  science,  cultural  and  technical  subjects  in  education,  ideal- 
ism and  utilitarianism,  and  on  the  old  distinction  between  living 
and  earning  a  living.  The  immense  increase  in  knowledge  during 
the  past  hundred  years  and  the  innumerable  new  applications  of 
knowledge  for  the  benefit  of  mankind  ought  long  ago  to  have  per- 
suaded us  that  a  greatly  enlarged  definition  of  culture  and  of  the 
cultivated  man  was  indispensable.  We  also  need  to  discard  forever 
the  notion  that  there  is  something  vulgar  or  degraded  about  the 
useful  and  the  serviceable.  After  all  is  said  to  the  discredit  of 
"  bread  and  butter  "  motives,  it  is  no  moral  or  philosophical  objec- 
tion to  a  discovery  or  a  field  of  knowledge  that  it  has  useful  appli- 
cations. Even  in  the  realms  of  the  beautiful,  fitness  for  some  human 
use  enhances  or  contributes  to  beauty,  or  is  an  important  element 
in  it.  A  ripening  field  of  grass  or  grain  billowing  in  the  summer 


LIFE-CAREER  MOTIVE  IN  EDUCATION  5 

wind  is  not  less  beautiful  because  it  promises  welcome  food  for 
man  or  beast.  The  apple  blossoms  are  not  less  beautiful  because 
apples  will  later  be  developed  from  them.  The  root  of  landscape 
beauty  is  adaptation  to  the  delight  and  service  of  man.  The  useful 
invention  of  a  Tungsten  filament  for  an  electric  lamp  is  no  less 
worthy  or  dignified  than  the  apparently  useless  discovery  attributed 
to  Thales,  that  a  piece  of  amber  rubbed  with  a  bit  of  silk  would 
attract  a  light  body  delicately  suspended  by  a  fine  thread.  More- 
over, the  mental  capacity  involved  in  the  invention  of  the  Tung- 
sten filament  is,  to  say  the  least,  just  as  strong  as  the  capacity  which 
Thales  exhibited  in  his  amber  experiment.  The  student  who  masters 
the  Tungsten-filament  facts  in  their  connection  is  just  as  worthily 
occupied  as  the  student  who  makes  himself  acquainted  with  the 
exploit  of  Thales,  although  the  observation  on  amber  was  innocent 
of  applications  to  human  welfare  for  two  thousand  years.  Again, 
there  is  nothing  inherently  selfish  or  low-minded  about  hard  mental 
work  done  in  order  to  improve  one's  chances  of  earning  a  good 
livelihood,  whether  in  overalls  or  apron,  or  in  street  clothes.  Indeed, 
the  earning  of  a  good  livelihood,  whether  by  man  or  woman,  is,  as 
a  rule,  an  altruistic  performance  in  high  degree  —  at  least  after 
twenty-five  years  of  age,  and  often  before  that  limit.  The  concep- 
tion that  useless  knowledge  is  purer  and  loftier  than  useful  belongs 
with  the  feudal  system  and  with  that  conception  of  religion  which 
makes  it  to  consist  largely  of  ceremonial,  detaches  it  from  ordinary 
human  life,  and  regards  it  as  in  great  part  an  .other-world  interest. 
American  society  has  pretty  well  got  over  the  feudal  idea  that  a 
gentleman  can  have  no  other  occupation  than  that  of  the  soldier, 
the  priest,  or  the  landowner,  and  is  beginning  to  understand  that 
religion  is  primarily  a  matter  of  loving  serviceableness  in  this  world. 
It  is  high  time  that  our  teachers  and  leaders  of  the  people  under- 
stood that  every  civilized  human  being  gets  the  larger  part  of 
his  life  training  in  the  occupation  through  which  he  earns  his 
livelihood,  and  that  his  schooling  in  youth  should  invariably  be 
directed  to  prepare  him  in  the  best  way  for  the  best  permanent 
occupation  of  which  he  is  capable.  In  other  words,  the  motive 
of  the  life-career  should  be  brought  into  play  as  early  and  fully 
as  possible. 


6  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

It  is  obvious,  however,  that  the  early  recognition  and  selection 
of  the  best  life  work  for  every  child  is  a  difficult  matter.  Let  us 
next  consider,  therefore,  first,  the  natural  helps  in  performing  this 
great  function  of  the  home  and  the  school,  and  secondly,  the  pre- 
cautions which  can  be  taken  in  indeterminate  cases.  There  are 
numerous  cases  in  which  an  occupation  is  naturally  transmitted 
from  parents  to  children,  or  from  one  generation,  in  a  broad  sense, 
to  another.  Thus,  in  an  agricultural  region,  or  in  a  town  of  one 
industry  or  two  or  three  industries,  it  is  altogether  probable  that 
large  groups  of  children  will  follow  the  occupations  of  their  parents. 
Again,  among  the  children  in  a  given  school  there  will  always  be 
a  fair  proportion  whose  natural  gifts  and  tendencies  become  obvi- 
ous to  the  observant  teacher  who  watches  them  for  years.  Such 
children  should  be  turned  toward  appropriate  occupations  by  the 
teacher  in  consultation  with  the  parents.  There  will  also  be  a  small 
proportion  of  children  who  know  their  own  minds  by  the  time  they 
are  fourteen  years  old.  They  too  should  be  helped  to  the  life  work 
which  attracts  them.  Finally,  in  every  community  and  every  school 
there  will  be  a  considerable  number  of  children  who  can  be  fairly 
prepared  for  any  one  of  several  occupations,  though  not,  perhaps, 
for  the  highest  success  in  any  one.  To  some  one  of  these  sets  or 
classes  the  great  majority  of  children  in  any  community  will  be 
found  to  belong. 

It  is  wise,  if  family  circumstances  permit,  to  postpone  the  actual 
training  for  a  specific  trade  or  occupation  till  at  least  the  sixteenth 
year,  because  in  "most  cases  the  body  is  not  sufficiently  developed 
before  that  age  to  undertake  the  real  work  of  a  trade.  Most  boys 
are  not  fitted  for  apprenticeship  or  a  trade  school  until  they  are 
sixteen,  and  in  general  seventeen  is  a  better  age  at  which  to  begin. 
Children  who  must  leave  school  at  fourteen  because  of  home  con- 
ditions should  be  required  to  attend  continuation  schools  or  part- 
time  schools ;  but  to  this  end  new  legislation  and  the  cooperation 
of  mercantile  establishments  are  necessary. 

If,  then,  the  motive  of  the  life-career  cannot  be  brought  into  full 
play  before  sixteen  years  of  age,  what  precautions  ought  to  be  taken 
to  maintain  the  interest  of  pupils  in  school  studies  up  to  that  time, 
and  to  give  them  a  training  which  will  not  only  increase  their  mental 


LIFE- CAREER  MOTIVE  IN  EDUCATION  / 

power  and  their  capacity  for  rational  enjoyment  but  also  their  earn- 
ing capacity  in  a  variety  of  occupations  ?  In  the  first  place,  instruc- 
tion in  .every  subject  taught  at  school  should  be  accompanied  to 
the  utmost  extent  possible  by  concrete  illustration  and  fresh,  current 
exemplification.  Real  shop  problems  should  be  used  to  illustrate 
the  theoretical  principles  of  geometry,  mechanics,  chemistry,  and 
physics.  This  sort  of  illustration  is  available  not  only  in  mathe- 
matics and  elementary  science  but  also  in  languages,  literature, 
and  history.  Secondly,  much  attention  —  much  more  than  is  now 
given  —  should  be  paid  in  every  elementary  and  secondary  school 
to  the  training  of  the  eye,  ear,  and  hand,  for  the  reason,  among 
others,  that  well-trained  powers  of  sight,  hearing,  and  touch  are  of 
high  value  in  any  life  occupation.  Thirdly,  the  elements  of  the  arts 
applicable  in  ordinary  households  and  in  various  trades  or  callings 
ought  to  be  carefully  taught  in  all  schools,  public,  endowed,  or 
private,  such  as  drawing  and  designing,  domestic  science  and  art 
and  home  economics,  carpentry  and  joinery,  and,  in  rural  com- 
munities, agriculture.  Rural  schools  have  an  advantage  here  over 
urban  schools,  because  agriculture  has  become  such  an  admirable 
subject  of  school  instruction  since  successful  farming  came  to 
involve  acquaintance  with  plant-breeding,  animal-breeding,  and  a 
variety  of  crops,  animals,  manures,  motors,  and  machines.  For 
children  between  the  ages  of  twelve  and  sixteen  it  is  particularly 
important  to  provide  various  forms  of  training  which  they  can  see 
will  be  of  use  to  them  in  after  life.  The  provision  of  well-graded 
courses  of  that  nature,  with  constant  concrete  illustration  of  every 
mental  process  or  problem,  will  go  far  to  hold  the  interest  of  the 
children  in  their  school  work,  and  prevent  premature  withdrawals 
or  diminish  the  number  of  them. 

The  next  question  is  —  and  it  is  a  grave  one  —  Who  is  going  to 
guide  the  inexperienced  child  to  a  wise  preliminary  choice  of  the 
life-career  ?  The  answer  must  be,  The  parents  and  the  teacher,  but 
mainly  the  teacher.  The  parents  and  the  teacher  together  ought 
to  be  easily  able,  in  the  first  place,  to  give  the  right  direction  to 
that  small  proportion  of  children  whose  education  clearly  ought  to 
be  prolonged  through  the  secondary  school  and  the  college  because 
of  good  parts  or  favorable  circumstances,  and  to  that  other  small 


8  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

proportion  whose  natural  bent  is  strong.  These  two  sorts  of  chil- 
dren, however,  together  make  but  a  small  minority ;  the  great 
majority  show  no  decided  bent,  and  seem  about  equally  fit  for  any 
one  of  several  callings,  so  that  some  authority  must  make  a  tenta- 
tive sorting  and  an  experimental  assignment.  Moreover,  since  the 
circumstances  of  the  parents  unfortunately  determine  for  a  large 
proportion  of  all  children  an  early  discontinuance  of  systematic 
education,  the  selective  function  of  the  teacher  will  at  the  best  have 
serious  limitations.  Democratic  society  has  as  yet  found  no  remedy 
for  this  undesirable  abridgment  of  school  life.  The  profession  of 
teaching  must  recognize  this  fact  and  cope  with  it,  so  far  as  pos- 
sible. At  present  we  are  permitting  the  great  majority  of  Ameri- 
can children  to  go  out  into  the  world  as  unskilled  laborers,  with- 
out having  chosen  any  trade  or  other  occupation  requiring  skill, 
and  without  having  felt  in  their  school  work  the  motive  of  the 
life-career.  This  is  an  evil  which  is  not  to  be  cured  by  additional 
legislation  merely.  It  must  be  cured  by  serious  modifications  of 
'the  programs  of  American  elementary  and  secondary  schools,  by 
the  acceptance  on  the  part  of  teachers  and  school  authorities  of  the 
function  of  guiding  children  into  appropriate  life  work,  and  by  pro- 
viding new  kinds  of  instruction  and  new  organizations  like  con- 
tinuation schools  and  trade  schools.  When  Benjamin  Franklin's 
father  thought  it  was  time  for  the  boy  to  choose  a  trade,  he  took 
Benjamin  about  the  town  and  showed  him  men  at  work  in  all  the 
trades  then  practiced  in  Boston,  and  it  was  only  after  this  com- 
parative survey  that  Benjamin  decided  to  be  a  printer.  A  very 
skillful  printer  he  became  by  the  time  he  was  eighteen  years  old. 
American  schools  should  perform  this  office  for  all  pupils  who 
ask  for  such  guidance. 

If  this  guiding  and  selecting  function  for  the  public  schools  looks 
difficult,  we  may  get  encouragement  from  the  fact  that  it  is  by  no 
means  untried  in  the  wide  world  of  education.  Germany,  France, 
Switzerland,  and  Belgium  can  all  show  this  thing  actually  done. 
Do  you  say,  "  True,  but  those  countries  are  not  so  free  industrially 
and  socially  as  ours  is.  Their  institutions,  or  their  industrial  con- 
ditions, or  their  family  habits  give  them  means  of  directing  chil- 
dren into  trades  which  we  do  not  possess."  It  is  well  that  we  do 


LIFE-CAREER  MOTIVE  IN  EDUCATION  9 

not  possess  any  means  of  compulsion,  for  success  and  happiness 
in  life  depend  on  the  individual's  following  a  congenial  calling.  It 
is  highly  inexpedient,  as  well  as  unjust,  to  force  any  child  or  youth 
into  a  trade  which  does  not  attract  him,  for  in  it  he  will  be  both 
inefficient  and  unhappy. 

Many  interesting  experiments  in  this  direction  are  already  started 
in  different  parts  of  the  United  States,  and  most  educational  author- 
ities are  taking  a  keen,  though  sometimes  uninstructed,  interest  in 
the  general  problem  of  vocational  training.  It  will  doubtless  occur 
to  many  minds  that  an  early  choice  of  a  trade  or  occupation  may 
turn  out  to  be  an  unwise  one.  Such  mistakes,  if  soon  discovered, 
will  not  be  very  serious  under  American  industrial  and  social  con- 
ditions, which  are  more  mobile  than  those  which  prevail  in  Europe, 
so  that  an  early  mistaken  choice  of  the  calling  can  be  more  easily 
rectified  here  than  it  can  be  in  the  old  countries.  Moreover,  a  good 
training  for  any  one  trade  will  always  contain  many  elements  which 
are  applicable  in  another  trade ;  and  if  the  motive  of  the  life-career 
has  been  in  good  play,  the  animated  mental  and  manual  work  done 
by  the  pupil  will  have  been  in  some  fair  measure  profitable  toward 
the  ultimate  career. 

When  all  available  means  have  been  used  to  discover  the  best 
vocation  for  each  child  and  to  direct  him  to  it,  there  will  remain 
in  the  mass  of  children  who  are  approaching  the  end  of  their 
school  life  numerous  indeterminate  cases  which  afford  no  clue  to 
the  best  calling  —  at  least  at  the  age  at  which  choice  urgently  needs 
to  be  made.  What  policy  should  a  well-organized  school  system  fol- 
low in  regard  to  such  children  ?  The  first  thing  to  be  done  is  to  keep 
such  children  interested  in  their  school  studies  as  long  as  possible, 
in  the  hope  of  preventing  them  from  going  to  work  as  unskilled 
and  immature  wage  earners.  To  maintain  interest  it  will  be  expedi- 
ent to  offer  in  the  school  a  considerable  variety  of  studies,  so  that 
each  child  may  have  a  chance  to  pursue  the  studies  he  most  affects, 
whether  chiefly  manual,  or  chiefly  mental,  whether  bookwork  or 
shop  work.  This  involves  a  school  program  stated  in  different 
groups,  or  offering  options.  A  program  of  this  sort  will  provide 
the  best  security  a  school  system  can  furnish  for  a  wise  ultimate 
choice  of  a  calling,  for  it  will  enable  the  undetermined  pupil  to 


10  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

select  the  studies  to  him  most  congenial.  When  at  a  later  date  he 
discovers  and  adopts  the  trade  or  occupation  for  which  he  is  best 
adapted,  it  will  turn  out  that  by  selecting  the  most  congenial  studies 
he  will  have  prepared  himself  for  the  congenial  trade  or  calling, 
because  the  same  natural  tendencies  which  directed  him  to  the 
selected  studies  will  direct  him  safely  to  the  ultimate  calling.  A 
single  uniform  course  of  study  prescribed  to  all  offers  no  such 
security  for  pupils  who  cannot  determine  their  trade  or  calling  at 
fourteen,  fifteen,  sixteen,  or  seventeen  years  of  age.  This  prin- 
ciple has  already  been  thoroughly  worked  out  with  students  of 
college  age.  Those  who  do  not  yet  recognize  their  best  calling  in 
life  should  choose  under  a  free  elective  system  the  studies  they 
severally  most  affect,  because  those  studies  will  in  all  probability 
prove  later  to  have  been  the  appropriate  preparation  for  the  calling, 
when  discovered,  in  which  each  can  best  succeed.  Both  in  school 
and  college  diversity,  not  uniformity,  of  product  should  be  the  aim. 
The  fortunate  pupil  or  student  is  he  who  early  discerns  his  life- 
career,  and  makes  his  school  training  or  his  school  and  college 
training  an  appropriate  preparation  for  it.  The  vocation  once 
known  gives  clear  guidance  to  those  knowledges  and  skills  which 
will  best  contribute  to  success  in  it. 

Whoever  advocates  the  introduction  of  concrete  illustration  and 
the  elements  of  industrial  training  into  the  common  schools  will 
at  once  encounter  three  objections  :  (i)  there  is  no  time  for  more 
subjects  ;  (2)  the  present  amount  of  instruction  in  the  so-called 
academic  subjects  is  already  inadequate  and  ought  not  to  be  reduced ; 
and  (3)  instruction  in  applied  science  and  industrial  subjects  is 
costly,  and  there  is  no  money  to  pay  for  it.  To  meet  the  first 
objection,  the  best  way  is  to  increase  school  time  per  day  and  per 
year.  This  would  now  be  possible  with  due  regard  for  the  health 
and  vigor  of  the  children,  because  many  of  the  new  subjects  call 
for  bodily  exercises,  and  also  because  improvements  already  effected 
in  school  grounds  and  buildings  make  the  hours  spent  in  school 
quite  as  healthy  as  those  spent  at  home,  healthier  indeed  under 
many  urban  conditions.  An  extension  of  school  time  from  twenty- 
five  hours  a  week  to  from  thirty-three  to  forty-four  hours  a  week, 
according  to  the  age  of  the  pupils,  would  make  great  improvements 


LIFE-CAREER  MOTIVE  IN  EDUCATION  II 

possible.  In  cities  and  large  towns  the  summer  vacation  should  be 
much  reduced.  This  lengthening  of  the  weekly  school  time  has 
already  begun  in  day  schools  which  make  much  of  manual  train- 
ing and  industrial  teachings,  and  the  vacation  schools,  summer 
camps,  and  summer  sessions  are  making  head  against  the  evils  of 
the  long  vacation.  In  connection  with  the  increased  interest  in  all 
school  work  resulting  from  the  admission  of  the  life-career  motive, 
the  increase  of  school  time  will  meet  completely  the  second  of  the 
above  objections.  There  will  be  no  need  to  reduce  the  academic 
or  cultural  elements  of  the  present  high-school  programs.  It  will 
be  possible  to  give  the  essentials  of  the  common  high-school  course 
and  also  much  manual  and  industrial  instruction.  This  is  not 
prophecy,  but  merely  the  recognition  of  existing  facts.  Finally, 
the  third  objection  —  no  money  —  must  be  met  by  getting  more 
money,  public  and  private,  to  spend  on  schools.  Some  unobservant 
and  unimaginative  people  say  that  it  is  impossible  to  increase  public 
expenditure  whether  for  schools  or  for  any  other  object.  The 
answer  to  that  pessimism  is  that  public  expenditure  foe  schools 
and  for  many  other  objects  has  been  greatly  increased  within  the 
past  thirty  years,  and  that  almost  all  citizens  hold  that  school  ex- 
penditure ought  to  be  increased  even  though  the  total  expenditures 
of  the  community  should  not  rise,  because,  if  judiciously  made,  it 
yields  a  larger  and  quicker  return  —  material,  mental,  and  moral 
—  than  any  other  expenditure. 

Throughout  the  discussion  of  the  expediency  of  introducing 
vocational  subjects  into  American  schools,  it  is  important  that  one 
fact  be  kept  clearly  in  mind  ;  namely,  that  to  provide  more  subjects 
of  instruction  does  not  mean  that  each  individual  pupil  is  neces- 
sarily to  study  more  subjects.  Thus  the  city  of  Munich  provides 
instruction  in  some  sixty  trades,  but  the  individual  Munich  boy  or 
girl  learns  only  one  trade.  So  American  schools  for  children  of 
twelve  years  and  upward  must  teach  many  subjects,  but  each  pupil 
will  pursue  only  that  number  of  subjects  which  is  expedient  for  him. 

To  the  question  where  it  is  most  important  to  introduce  indus- 
trial training,  and  to  give  the  motive  of  the  life-career  the  freest 
play  possible,  will  not  the  answer  of  our  profession  be  well-nigh 
unanimous  —  in  the  public-school  system,  from  the  seventh  grade 


12  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to  the  twelfth  grade  inclusive  ?  Many  other  organizations  and 
instrumentalities  will  share  in  the  good  work,  but  the  free  public- 
school  system  should  be  the  chief  field  of  this  great  reform.  The 
ample  and  discriminating  report  recently  published  by  this  asso- 
ciation's Committee  on  the  Place  of  Industries  in  Public  Education 
exhibits  the  immense  confusion  of  nomenclature,  opinions,  plans, 
and  efforts  which  clouds  the  subject  of  industrial  education,  but 
out  of  this  confusion  emerges  one  unifying  and  integrating  con- 
ception—  that  of  the  supreme  value  of  the  life-career  motive  in 
the  lifelong  process  of  education.  On  being  installed  as  rector  of 
the  University  of  Edinburgh  in  1866,  Carlyle  told  the  students 
what  "  a  man  is  born  to,  in  all  epochs.  He  is  born  to  expend 
every  particle  of  strength  that  God  Almighty  has  given  him,  in 
doing  the  work  he  finds  he  is  fit  for ;  to  stand  up  to  it  to  the 
last  breath  of  life,  and  to  do  his  best." 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

BY  PRESIDENT  RICHARD  C.  MACLAURIN  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS 
INSTITUTE  OF  TECHNOLOGY 

(An  Address  delivered  at  the  First  National  Conference  on  Vocational 
Guidance,  Boston,  1910) 

It  seems  to  me  that  this,  the  first  meeting  of  the  National  Con- 
ference on  Vocational  Guidance,  although  there  is  a  total  absence 
of  pomp  and  circumstance  in  the  gathering,  is  in  Carlyle's  phrase 
"  significant  of  much."  It  indicates  that  an  old  order  is  passing 
and  giving  place  to  a  new.  The  old  watchwords,  which  were  so 
useful  in  their  days,  the  watchwords  of  our  fathers  and  grandfathers, 
such  as  "  Breadth,"  "  Freedom,"  "  Liberty,"  are  less  frequently 
heard  in  these  days.  In  the  political  field  few  people  will  maintain 
to-day  that  freedom  is  the  mother  of  all  virtue.  In  the  economic 
field  the  old  doctrine  of  laissez  faire  is  entirely  abandoned.  No 
economist  of  repute  to-day  will  try  to  make  you  believe  that  the 
best  of  all  possible  results  to  society  can  be  obtained  merely  by 
allowing  the  free  play  of  competition,  by  letting  every  one  have 
the  utmost  freedom  to  fight  for  his  individual  interests,  without 
control  or  guidance  from  anywhere.  That,  in  economics,  is  an 
exploded  doctrine,  exploded  by  the  experience  of  actual  life.  And 
so  in  education  the  old  ideal,  the  noble  and  splendid  ideal  of 
culture,  of  breadth,  and  of  the  all-rounded  man,  is,  if  not  aban- 
doned, at  least  much  less  prominently  presented  in  the  discussion 
of  educational  problems.  That  in  actual  practice  it  has  been  found 
impossible  to  realize  this  great  ideal  is  not,  of  course,  surprising. 
Few  ideals  can  be  realized.  The  defect  of  this  ideal  is  that  it  does 
not  supply  a  motive  strong  enough  to  be  effective  for  the  young 
people  of  the  present  day.  Hence  we  must  turn  our  attention  to 
other  motives  in  the  hope  of  finding  some  that  will  stand  the  test 
of  practical  experience.  And  so  we  hear  everywhere  in  education 

13 


14  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to-day  talk  of  the  vocational  motive  ;  not  a  new  thing,  it  is  true, 
but  one  that  is  being  .given  exceptional  prominence.  Fortunately, 
there  is  less  talk  to-day  than  there  was  earlier,  less  foolish  talk  in 
tones  of  disparagement  of  bread  and  butter  studies,  as  if  bread  and 
butter  were  not  excellent  things  in  themselves,  rarely  despised  in 
actual  practice  by  men  of  culture  and  enlightenment.  We  have  to 
face  everywhere  in  the  field  of  education  the  problem  of  fitting 
men  for  the  actual  conditions  of  the  world  to-day  and  to-morrow ; 
we  must  have  an  educational  device  that  will  make  our  youth  see 
that  to  succeed  they  will  have  to  work  seriously ;  we  must  have  an 
educational  system  that  will  fit  them  for  particular  professions.  The 
recognition  of  this  has  brought  about  all  over  this  country  and  all 
over  the  world  the  establishment  of  professional  schools  aimed  to 
fit  men  for  particular  professions  and  having  especial  regard  to 
the  immediate  needs  of  those  professions.  The  success  of  these 
professional  schools  has  been  remarkable ;  everywhere  they  are 
flourishing  to-day,  having  proved  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt 
that  the  training  they  have  afforded  has  been  eminently  useful.  As 
an  unexpected  result,  they  have  proved  that  the  introduction  of  the 
vocational  motive  solves  a  very  large  part  of  the  problems  that  are 
presented  in  the  older  forms  of  education.  Look  at  our  educational 
world  in  this  country  to-day  ;  hear  all  the  criticism  from  men  who 
know  and  who  are  really  friendly  in  their  attitude  toward  the  insti- 
tutions of  the  older  type.  Hear  their  criticism  of  our  colleges. 
Listen  to  what  President  Wilson  has  said  of  the  colleges  of  to- 
day: that  in  many  cases  the  side  shows  have  swallowed  up  the 
circus.  Listen  to  similar  remarks  from  prominent  educators  from 
New  York  to  San  Francisco.  Everywhere  you  hear  criticism  of 
education  of  the  older  type  largely  on  the  ground  that  the  men 
who  are  subjected  to  that  form  of  education  do  not  take  their  work 
seriously.  Now,  no  such  criticism  is  possible  of  our  professional 
schools ;  in  them  earnestness  and  seriousness  of  purpose  is  almost 
all  pervading.  This,  among  other  things,  has  suggested  to  educated 
men  the  world  over  that  it  may  be  well  to  attempt  to  introduce  the 
vocational  motive  into  all  our  schools.  There  have  been  other 
forces,  social  forces,  making  in  the  same  direction,  and  now  the 
matter  has  got  well  .beyond  the  region  of  mere  discussion,  and 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  15 

presents  to-day  a  great  practical  problem.   It  is  an  immensely  diffi- 
cult problem.    How  are  we  to  deal  with  the  great  mass  nf  young 
people  who_are  not  going  to  College  jiorjhjn  king  of  entering  pro- 
s  they  af  prespnf  pyjgt  ;  that  enormous  mass  for 


whom  circumstances,  conditions  or  capacities  make  any  higher 
effort  absolutgly_jmpossible  ?  Thatjs_the_great  prphjern  of  voca- 
tional  education,  immensely  complex  and  immensely  important. 

But  vocational  education  is  not  the  subject  we  are  to  discuss 
to-night  ;  it  is  rather  vocational  guidance.  The  great  question,  the 
momentous  question,  What  are  we  to  do  with  our  boys  ?  is,  like 
the  poor,  ever  with  us,  always  a  matter  of  anxious  solicitude  to 
serious  parents  and  daily  being  answered  in  the  wrong  way.  That 
it  should  be  answered  wrongly  need  give  rise  to  no  surprise,  for 
the  problem  is  intrinsically  difficult  in  the  extreme.  With  those 
who  have  exceptional  capacity  or  exceptionally  strong  interests, 
there  is  scarcely  any  problem  at  all.  But  these  are  always  infini- 
tesimal in  number  ;  and  the  difficulty  is  to  deal  successfully  with 
the  great  mass  of  young  people.  Of  course  for  centuries  most 
schools  have  formed  something  in  the  nature  of  a  vocational 
bureau.  Almost  every  teacher  worthy  of  the  name  has  interested 
himself  at  some  time  or  other  in  the  life  work  of  his  students  and 
helped  student  or  parent  in  the  choice  of  a  calling.  At  this  Insti- 
tute of  Technology  it  has  long  been  recognized  as  one  of  the  im- 
portant functions  of  the  professors  and  instructors  to  afford  such 
guidance.  Young  men  come  to  us  often  with  somewhat  vague 
ideas  as  to  their  future  calling.  They  have  some  interest  in 
science,  but  have  no  conception  of  the  enormous  variety  of 
callings  to  which  the  scientific  training  may  lead.  Even  educated 
men  of  experience  rarely  realize  what  this  variety  is.  Not  one  in 
a  thousand  appreciates  what  an  enormous  number  of  openings 
there  are  to  a  man  who  really  masters  even  a  small  field  of 
science  and  is  alert  enough  to  be  conscious  of  its  practical  appli- 
cations. There  are  literally  thousands  of  such  different  callings 
to-day  in  the  field  of  applied  science,  and  there  will  be  tens  of 
thousands  in  the  near  future.  Under  such  circumstances  guidance 
is  a  necessity.  Now  at  the  Institute  of  Technology  the  problem  is 
in  some  respects  unusually  simple.  We  have  in  the  first  place  to 


16  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

deal  with  picked  students,  and  our  method  of  procedure  enables  us 
to  watch  these  students  closely  for  a  considerable  period  of  time 
and  so  to  form  a  fairly  accurate  measure  of  their  capacity  and  in- 
terest before  guiding  them  in  any  particular  direction.  Then  we 
have  the  very  great  advantage  of  having  amongst  our  teachers  a 
large  number  of  men  actively  engaged  in  the  practice  of  their  pro- 
fession and  knowing  intimately  what  the  real  needs  of  the  world 
are.  But  even  with  these  advantages  we  recognize  the  problem  as 
one  of  great  difficulty.  And  it  is  evident  that  the  difficulties  will 
be  enormously  increased  when  the  selection  has  to  be  made  earlier 
in  life  for  students  whose  powers  are  less  fully  developed  and  by 
men  who  have  less  favorable  opportunities  for  wise  guidance. 

Clearly  some  guidance  there  must  be,  and  the  question  arises 
who  is  to  be  the  guide  or  who  are  to  be  the  guides.  As  far  as  I 
can  see,  it  cannot  be  any  single  man  or  any  single  body  of  men. 
The  pupils  alone  cannot  be  satisfactory  guides.  They,  of  course, 
must  take  a  part  —  an  active  and  leading  part  in  the  choice  of  their 
life  work.  I  sometimes  think  that  the  question  "  What  shall  we  do 
with  our  boys  ?  "  would  be  better  in  the  form  "  What  shall  our  boys 
do  for  themselves  ?  "  They,  at  any  rate,  have  an  advantage  in  know- 
ing their  own  interests,  and  no  one  who  has  thought  of  the  matter 
can  fail  to  see  that  interest  in  one's  life  work  or  profession  is  more 
than  half  the  battle.  But  the  boys  cannot  guide  themselvesjwisely 
bgcaiis**  o£-their  inexperience  of  the  actual,  conditions  of  the  world. 
TJipyjjr^_r>nt_kr>r>w  ?nc\  rqnnot  know_wjiat  it  really  means  to  be  a 
bricklayer  or  a  doctor  or  a  bankprrjor  anything  else.  Some-kind  of 
assisfcrnre  from  outside  they  must  have._Can  the  parents  guide  ? 
Here,  again,  it  is  obvious  that  they  must  take  a  serious  share  in 
the  great  work,  but  alone  they  are  almost  sure  to  be  poor  guides. 
It  is  common  experience  that  they  are  too  close  to  their  children 
to  have  a  proper  perspective  regarding  their  capacities  and  powers. 
Apart  from  this  they  are  unfortunately  too  often  unduly  influenced 
by  what  they  would  like  their  sons  or  daughters  to  be  or  by  their 
views  as  to  the  relative  advantages  of  different  callings  for  the  ac- 
quisition of  wealth,  or  power,  or  social  prestige.  And  if  pupil  and 
parent  cannot  as  a  rule  make  the  selection,  no  more  can  the  teacher, 
although  he  can  contribute  largely  and  in  many  cases  can  give  greater 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  I/ 

assistance  than  any  other  single  person.  Strategically,  his  position 
is  a  good  one,  as  he  is  better  placed  than  almost  anyone  for  sizing 
up  the  actual  conditions  of  the  individual  students.  He  has  oppor- 
tunities of  gauging  their  powers,  capacities,  and  interests  that  no 
one  else  has,  and,  of  course,  it  should  be  capacity  and  interest  more 
than  anything  else  that  determines  a  man's  life  work.  And  yet  the 
teachers  do  not  always  make  good  guides,  partly  because  their  cir- 
cumstances and  their  mode  of  living  prevent  them  from  having  a 
large  enough  view  of  life,  although,  of  course,  there  are  many  alert 
and  broad-minded  men  and  women  in  the  profession  who  can  and 
do  perform  the  work  of  guidance  admirably.  If,  then,  neither  pupil 
nor  parent  nor  teacher  alone  can  guide  the  students,  who  is  to  do 
it  ?  In  my  judgment  they  must  all  take  a  part,  but  their  work  to 
be  successful  must  enlist  the  cooperation  of  high-minded  and  public- 
spirited  men  in  the  busy  world  who  are  ready  to  give  society  the 
benefit  of  their  experience  and  aid  the  rising  generation  by  their 
suggestions  and  advice.  Such  men  can  help  enormously  in  this 
great  task.  And  what  they  might  do  would  doubtless  be  much 
facilitated  by  the  establishment  of  a  vocational  bureau  with  a  per- 
manent office  and  properly  staffed  with  men  and  women  whose 
duties  it  would  be  to  enlist  the  sympathy  of  broad-minded  citizens, 
to  keep  a  record  of  what  they  advise  and  suggest,  to  find  out  what 
are  the  actual  requirements  of  the  various  trades  and  professions, 
and  to  study  the  needs  of  the  community  as  regards  these  trades 
and  professions,  and  generally  to  form  a  storehouse  of  information 
on  vocational  guidance.  It  is  by  some  such  combination  of  effort 
that  the  great  problem  is  to  be  solved,  if  solved  at  all.  It  is  not  a 
new  problem  nor  an  untried  one.  It  has  been  attacked  in  this  country 
in  a  modest  way.  It  has  been  similarly  attacked  in  Belgium,  France, 
and  other  countries  in  Europe.  But  no  one  who  looks  at  the  problem 
and  realizes  its  importance  will  doubt  that  the  attack  to  be  success- 
ful must  be  far  more  serious  than  it  has  hitherto  been  and  that  it 
must  be  taken  up  far  more  vigorously  and  helped  more  constantly 
by  representative  men  in  the  community. 

Whatever  one's  views  regarding  such  matters  may  be,  there  can 
be  no  question  of  the  importance  of  the  right  solution  of  the  problem 
under  consideration.  Whether  we  look  at  the  individual  or  at  society 


1 8  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

the  present  condition  is  deplorable.  On  every  hand  we  meet  with 
the  tragedy  of  failure  or  of  partial  failure  and  see  the  dissatisfaction 
and  the  misery  that  is  brought  about  by  the  placing  of  square  pegs 
in  round  holes.  In  these  days  men  who  are  to  amount  to  anything 
must  be  workers  in  some  field,  intellectual  or  manual.  If  they  are 
to  be  happy  or  moderately  happy,  they  must  get  their  pleasure,  or 
the  major  portion  of  it,  from  their  work.  If  they  must  look  else- 
where for  such  pleasure,  they  are  almost  inevitably  doomed  to 
dissatisfaction  if  not  misery.  It  is  somewhat  surprising  that  the 
dissatisfaction  is  not  greater  than  it  actually  is  when  we  consider 
the  haphazard  methods  of  choosing  callings.  And  of  course  it  is 
not  merely  the  individuals  that  suffer  —  society  as  a  whole  is  deeply 
affected  not  only  through  the  unhappiness  of  its  members  but 
through  their  lack  of  efficiency  as  workers  for  the  benefit  of  the 
community.  There  is  much  talk  to-day,  wise  and  otherwise,  regard- 
ing the  preservation  or  conservation  of  our  natural  resources.  Un- 
questionably, the  waste  is  enormous,  and  needless  waste  is  a  crime. 
It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  there  are  wastes  that  go  on  around 
us  daily  many  times  more  distressing  in  their  results  than  the  waste 
of  our  natural  resources  that  is  so  much  deplored.  That  is  saying 
a  good  deal,  if  you  think  only  for  a  moment  of  the  waste  that  goes 
on  in  a  single  city  such  as  that  of  Boston  through  unscientific  and 
therefore  uneconomic  methods  of  dealing  with  our  problems.  It 
has  been  estimated  that  the  saving  that  could  easily  be  effected  in 
this  city  in  the  coal  bill  of  its  citizens  would  form  a  splendid  endow- 
ment for  all  the  educational  institutions  in  this  neighborhood,  and 
there  are  similar  wastes  in  other  fields.  There  is  no  waste,  however, 
that  is  quite  so  distressing  as  the  waste  of  human  effort  that  you 
can  see  daily  in  cases  where  men  are  engaged  in  a  calling  for  which 
they  are  not  fitted.  Men  everywhere  are  wearing  out  their  energies 
and  their  lives  by  working  in  the  wrong  field  and  are  thereby  not 
only  bringing  dissatisfaction  to  themselves  but  are  not  serving  society 
to  the  best  of  their  capacity.  If  we  can  do  anything  to  diminish 
such  waste,  then  I  say  that  it  is  a  national'  duty  to  take  the  matter 
seriously  and  do  everything  that  we  can. 


THE  SOCIAL  WASTE  OF  UNGUIDED  PERSONAL 

ABILITY 

BY  ERVILLE  B.  WOODS,  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE 
(From  The  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  November,  1913) 

It  has  been  pointed  out  by  a  number  of  writers  that  the  well- 
known  difference  between  the  birth  rate  of  the  well-to-do  classes 
and  that  of  the  more  rapidly  multiplying  laboring  classes  is  fraught 
with  serious  consequences.  It  is  asserted  that  the  upward  move- 
ment of  the  able  from  class  to  class,  and  from  the  country  to  the 
city,  segregates  the  brains  and  the  energy,  the  ambitions  and  the 
capacity,  of  the  nation  in  a  section  of  the  population  which  is  dying 
out  by  the  process  of  class  suicide.  Society  is  thus  represented 
as  selecting  for  extinction  its  most  capable  breeds  and  becoming 
in  consequence  an  aggregate  of  increasingly  mediocre  individuals. 
One  might  well  suppose  from  such  considerations  that  the  case  of 
modern  society  is  hopeless. 

There  is  the  possibility,  however,  that  the  machinery  of  selection 
does  not  work  with  quite  the  ruthless  thoroughness  imputed  to  it. 
There  are  a  number  of  considerations  which  cast  doubt  upon  this 
assumption,  (i)  The  ability  or  capacity  which  leads  to  success  is 
far  from  being  simple,  uniform,  or  commensurable.  It  may  almost 
be  defined  as  any  variation  which  proves  to  be  favorable  in  a  given 
environment.  There  is  probably  no  variation  which  would  not  prove 
of  advantage  in  some  environment.  It  is  because  successful  people 
are  so  indefinitely  different  among  themselves  —  are  so  many  kinds 
of  variants,  in  other  words  —  that  it  is  perhaps  doubtful  whether 
if  they  mated  exclusively  among  themselves  their  offspring  would 
be  distinguished  particularly  from  the  offspring  of  the  rest  of  the 
population.  (2)  Much  ability,  many  of  the  valuable  variations,  are 
the  result  not  of  inheritance  but  of  development  and  specialization 

19 


20  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

of  effort  only.  The  attention  of  one  individual  for  some  reason 
is  drawn  off  from  all  other  subjects  and  directed  to  one  task  exclu- 
sively ;  that  individual  succeeds ;  even  ill  health,  by  limiting  the 
number  of  personal  interests,  sometimes  accomplishes  this  end ;  a 
second  individual  lavishing  attention  upon  several  objects  attends 
with  conspicuous  success  to  none.  Here  is  apparently  a  difference 
in  ability,  but  hardly  a  difference  likely  to  be  repeated  in  the  follow- 
ing generation.  Until  exact  psychic  measurements  are  further  per- 
fected, it  is  hazardous  to  estimate  the  importance  of  the  two  sets 
of  causes,  hereditary  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  those  con- 
nected with  economy  and  concentration  of  attention.  (3)  Ability  re- 
ceives its  reward  only  when  it  is  presented  with  the  opportunities 
of  a  fairly  favorable  environment,  its  peculiarly  indispensable  sort  of 
environment.  Naval  commanders  are  not  likely  to  be  developed  in 
the  Transvaal,  nor  literary  men  and  artists  in  the  soft-coal  fields  of 
western  Pennsylvania.  For  .ten  men  who  succeed  asjpyestigaters. 
inventors,  or  diplomatists,  there  may  be  and  probably  argjin  some 
communitigs_  fifty  more  who  would  suc£eed_be.tt£r_imder4he  same 
circumstances. 

In  these  failures  of  well-endowed  individuals  and  in  the  artificial 
successes  of  poorly  endowed  favorites,  there  may  be  a  crumb  of  con- 
solation for  the  social  biologist  who  might  rejoice  that  a  few  brands 
escape  the  burning  in  which  success  consumes  itself,  but  to  the  social 
economist  the  waste  of  social  materials  involved  appears  to  be  a 
most  serious  loss  in  itself. 

Professor  Lester  F.  Ward,  in  his  "Applied  Sociology,"  has  stated 
and  elaborated  this  point  of  view  most  cogently.  Following  the 
way  which  he  has  blazed,  it  should  not  be  difficult  to  point  out 
certain  limitations  upon  the  social  selections  under  discussion. 

In  the  present  discussion  I  shall  confine  myself  to  education 
understood  in  a  broad  sense  as  an  agency  in  the  selection  of  personal 
ability,  for  of  all  the  agencies  by  which  individuals  may  be  qualified 
to  play  a  distinctive  role  in  society  and  one  in  accordance  with  their 
inherited  capabilities,  education  is  undoubtedly  the  greatest. 

The  imperfect  results  which  our  educational  system  achieves  are 
the  result  mainly  of  the  undue  abbreviation  of  the  period  of  training 
for  most  individuals  and  of  the  omission  of  elements  of  training  of 


SOCIAL  WASTE  OF  UNGUIDED  ABILITY  21 

real  significance  for  the  purpose  of  adjusting  individuals  to  social 
tasks.  The  crucial  question  is  whether  all  of  those  individuals  are 
getting  into  the  running  who  are  capable  of  putting  up  the  best  race, 
whether  those  individuals  are  being  inducted  into  the  traditions  of 
science  and  of  industry  who  are  most  likely  to  render  those  fields 
the  service  of  large  capacities. 

The  most  striking  fact  which  meets  the  eye  from  the  pages  of 
educational  statistics  is  the  abbreviation  of  the  period  of  instruction 
for  so  large  a  part  of  the -school  population.  Only  a  fraction  of 
those  who  enter  the  elementary  schools  are  turned  over  to  the 
higher  schools.  The  number  of  those  who  continue  their  education 
does  not  exhaust  the  talented  part  of  the  population.  The  handicap 
imposed  by  leaving  school  early  consists  not  merely  in  being  de- 
prived of  a  vantage  ground  from  which  an  appropriate  vocational 
choice  may  be  made  but  also  in  the  fact  that  such  youth  are  almost 
certain  to  drift  into  inconsequential  and  totally  uneducative  tasks 
such  as  our  society  reserves  as  a  heritage  for  the  working  boy. 
Every  industry  has  its  "  boys'  work,"  and  in  extremely  few  cases 
does  such  work  afford  a  stimulus  to  ambitious  effort  or  to  personal 
development. 

In  the  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1909,  the 
enrollment  of  pupils  in  the  elementary  and  high  schools  of  1024 
cities  and  villages  of  over  4000  population  is  given  by  years.  The 
aggregate  enrollment  of  boys  and  girls  in  these  cities  exceeds 
4,000,000,  so  it  appears  that  the  returns  are  sufficiently  complete 
to  give  them  a  high  degree  of  significance. 

The  enrollment  of  boys  is  largest  in  the  second  grade,  and  drops 
gradually  until  about  the  fifth  grade,  where  the  enrollment  is  80  per 
cent  of  what  it  was  in  the  second.  In  the  sixth,  however,  it  has 
dropped  to  about  66  per  cent,  in  the  seventh  to  slightly  more  than 
50  per  cent,  and  in  the  eighth  to  less  than  40  per  cent  of  the  en- 
rollment in  the  second  grade.  The  four  years  of  high  school  show 
in  terms  of  the  same  standard,  respectively,  one  fourth,  one  sixth, 
one  tenth,  one  fourteenth.  In  other  words,  making  no  correction 
for  the  somewhat  smaller  number  of  boys  in  the  population  at  the 
high-school  age,  only  one  in  14  of  those  enrolled  in  the  second 
grade  reaches  the  fourth  year  of  high  school. 


22  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

In  the  analysis  of  population  according  to  age  found  in  the  census 
of  1900,  the  number  of  boys  in  the  United  States  of  age  seven  was 
904,428,  which  may  be  represented  by  100  per  cent,  and  may  stand 
roughly  for  those  of  about  first-grade  or  second-grade  age.  (The 
variation  in  the  total  population  from  one  year  to  the  next  is  not 
great  enough  to  affect  the  purpose  for  which  the  figures  are  used.) 
It  will  be  found  that  the  number  of  boys  of  age  fourteen  constitute 
nearly  87  per  cent  of  those  of  age  seven  ;  boys  of  age  sixteen 
constitute  83.6  per  cent  of  the  number  at  age  seven.  It  may  be 
assumed  that  the  age  distribution  for  the  United  States  (between 
the  ages  seven  and  sixteen)  would  not  be  found  seriously  erroneous 
for  the  1024  cities  and  villages  reporting  school  enrollment. 

With  this  assumption  we  find  that  between  the  second  and 
eighth  grades  the  enrollment  falls  from  100  to  38.6  per  cent,  while 
between  the  seventh  and  sixteenth  years  the  number  of  boys  in 
the  population  decreases  only  from  100  to  83.6  per  cent.  It  may 
therefore  be  inferred  that  in  these  thousand  cities  and  villages  less 
than  half  the  boys  who  live  to  a  sufficient  age  are  found  enrolled 
in  the  eighth  grade.  More  than  half  of  them  drop  out  in  some 
earlier  grade. 

This  leads  to  a  point  which  has  received  fairly  general  recogni- 
tion, that  many  times  the  youth  who  persists  to  the  end  of  the 
grammar-school  course  or  even  through  the  high  school  finds  himself 
even  then  in  possession  of  no  specific  knowledge,  skill,  discernment, 
or  qualification  adequate  to  the  selection  or  the  accomplishment  of 
the  tasks  to  which  he  must  presently  address  himself.  A  whole 
series  of  educational  reforms  are  competing  at  the  present  time 
upon  the  basis  of  this  general  criticism.  I  shall  refer  briefly  to 
but  one  of  them  —  vocational  counsel  as  a  part  of  the  education 
of  the  boy. 

At  this  point  I  wish  simply  to  enforce  the  conviction  that  the 
educational  net  fails  by  far  of  catching  and  holding  all  whom  it  is 
desirable,  for  the  sake  of  the  social  good,  to  drag  to  the  surface. 

The  explanation  of  the  facts  already  noted  lies  mainly  outside 
of  the  schoolroom.  Ward  has  pointed  out  that  among  the  really 
important  factors  conditioning  individual  success  is  "a  social 
position  such  as  is  capable  of  producing  a  sense  of  self-respect, 


SOCIAL  WASTE  OF  UNGUIDED  ABILITY  23 

dignity,  and  reserve  power  which  alone  can  inspire  confidence  in 
one's  worth  and  in  one's  right  to  enter  the  lists  for  the  great  prizes 
of  life."  He  quotes  approvingly  Professor  Cooley's  remark  that  "  a 
man  can  hardly  fix  his  ambition  upon  a  literary  career  when  he  is 
perfectly  unaware,  as  millions  are,  that  such  a  thing  as  a  literary 
career  exists."  Nothing  is  more  likely  to  prevent  the  selection  and 
elevation  of  able  characters  than  that  a  considerable  section  of  the 
population  should  for  one  reason  or  another  regard -them  selves  as 
"  counted  out  "  of  the  running  for  positions  of  honor  and  responsi- 
bility. While  this  is  a  mental  attitude  less  common  in  a  democracy 
than  in  monarchical  and  definitely  stratified  societies,  yet  it  is  liable 
to  be  fostered  increasingly  among  us  in  proportion  as  our  popula- 
tion is  gathered  in  industrial  centers  where  the  family  as  a  whole, 
not  its  male  head,  becomes  the  unit  of  economic  support,  and  chil- 
dren in  consequence  are  early  sent  to  work.  Whatever  the  fluidity 
of  American  society  forty  or  sixty  or  eighty  years  ago,  industrial 
America  in  the  twentieth  century  is  not  assured,  by  any  mechan- 
ism of  selection  now  in  operation,  of  the  automatic  detection  and 
utilization  of  the  abilities  with  which  its  citizens  may  be  endowejl^ 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  ambition  is  a  relative,  not  an  at>o 
solute,  matter,  and  that  the  horizon  of  the  average  youth  is  limited  | 
by  the  radius  of  the  "vocational  imagination  "  possessed  by  mem-  If 
bers  of  his  family  and  social  group.    The  cue  to  the  explanation/A 
of  success  lies  in  part  in  'the  self-classification  of  individuals.    Welv 
try  to  live  up  to  what  we  suppose  we  are,  just  as  the  imaginary   IT 
kings  and  queens  who  are  sometimes  met  with  give  themselves/ 
the  airs  appropriate  to  their  station.    It  is  not  only  a  question  ofl 
what  individuals  are  able  to  do,  but  also  of  what  they  are  "put  tip  " 
to  do  by  the  stimulation  and  suggestion  of  their  social  environ- 
ment.   If  one  were  once  accustomed  to  it,  it  might  not  prove  so 
much  more  difficult  to  think  with  the  prince  in  terms  of  provinces,  1  M 
or  with  the  astronomer  in  terms  of  solar  systems,  than  it  is  to 
wrestle  with  the  exigencies  of  the  cobbler's  bench   or  with  the      J 
daily  problems  of  the  locksmith  or  the  tinker. 

With  a  view  to  throwing  a  little  light  if  possible  upon  the  influ- 
ences which  shape  the  ambitions  and  plans  of  boys,  at  about  the 
age  when  one  half  of  them  have  brought  their  formal  education  to  a 


24  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

close,  a  simple  statistical  inquiry  was  undertaken  at  the  end  of  1910, 
made  possible  by  the  courteous  cooperation  of  the  public-school 
authorities  of  the  city  of  St.  Paul.  Boys  in  the  seventh  and  eighth 
grades  of  eighteen  of  the  larger  public  schools,  1076  boys  in  all, 
wrote  answers  to  the  following  questions  :  "  Do  you  expect  to  go  to 
high  school  ?  "  "  What  is  your  father's  exact  occupation  ? "  "  What 
occupation  or  work  do  you  think  you  would  like  best  to  work  at  all 
your  life  ?  "  "  Why  do  you  think  you  would  like  this  occupation  ?  " 

In  the  replies  to  these  questions  there  is  material  for  a  rough  sort 
of  reconstruction  in  statistical  terms  of  a  part  of  the  social  environ- 
ment surrounding  these  thousand  boys.  To  understand  a  state  of 
mind  is  as  important  as  to  understand  a  purely  objective  state  of 
facts.  While  the  results  are  in  terms  of  expectations  and  prefer- 
ences and  will  change  materially  in  many  cases  during  the  next  few 
years,  it  is  believed  that  they  throw  light  upon  the  working  of  the 
mind  of  the  boy  early  in  the  period  when  vocational  and  career- 
making  choices  begin  to  be  made.  The  replies  of  these  boys  reflect 
such  factors  as  family  ambition,  degree  of  economic  independence 
of  parents,  intelligence  of  parents,  and,  in  general,  varying  outlooks 
upon  the  possibilities  which  life  affords. 

In  spite  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  satisfactory  classifi- 
cation of  occupations,  it  has  seemed  feasible  to  classify  the  boys 
according  to  the  occupational  groups  to  which  the  father  belongs. 
For  this  purpose  eight  classes  have  been  made  use  of :  the  first 
group  is  the  professional  and  includes  such  occupations  as  lawyer, 
physician,  architect,  musician,  civil  engineer,  etc.  This  group  num- 
bers 54  cases.  The  second  group  is  the  mercantile  and  is  composed 
of  proprietors  of  businesses,  superintendents,  traveling  salesmen, 
managers,  and  all  the  better-paid  commercial,  industrial,  and  offi- 
cial positions  of  a  nonmanual  character.  It  is  a  large  group  (358 
cases),  and  membership  in  it  implies  bearing  a  certain  business  or 
administrative  responsibility  as  well  as  what  some  imagine  to  be 
a  kind  of  clean-handed  respectability.  The  third  and  fourth  groups 
are  small  (63  and  66  respectively)  and  consist  of  those  following 
subordinate  clerical  and  petty  mercantile  occupations  respectively. 
The  type  of  the  former  is  the  clerk  in  an  office  and  of  the  latter 
the  clerk  in  a  store.  Both  groups  are  nonmanual.  The  fifth  group 


SOCIAL  WASTE  OF  UNGUIDED  ABILITY  25 

consists  of  the  skilled  manual  workers.  This  group  again  is  a  large 
one,  numbering  298  cases,  and  the  type  is  the  man  following  a 
skilled  trade,  such  as  the  carpenter,  plumber,  machinist,  etc.  The 
sixth  group  numbers  1 1 1  and  includes  the  unskilled  or  slightly  skilled 
manual  occupations,  such  as  laborers,  teamsters,  street-sweepers, 
waiters,  porters,  etc.  The  seventh  group,  which  is  almost  negligible, 
is  made  up  of  14  cases  where  the  father  follows  some  agricultural 
occupation.  The  eighth  group  consists  of  all  cases  not  assignable 
to  one  of  the  first  seven,  and  is  therefore  of  no  special  significance. 

Without  going  into  further  details,  I  may  state  briefly  the  char- 
acter of  the  answers  to  the  question,  "  Do  you  expect  to  go  to  high 
school  ? "  Of  the  boys  from  the  professional  class  94  per  cent 
replied  in  the  affirmative  ;  of  the  mercantile  class,  86  per  cent ;  of 
the  clerical,  74  per  cent ;  of  the  petty  mercantile,  67  per  cent ;  of 
the  artisan  class,  61  per  cent ;  of  the  laborer  class,  54  per  cent. 

We  may  therefore  conclude  that  for  boys  who  reach  the  seventh 
and  eighth  grades  (taking  no  account  of  those  who  fall  out  in  the 
earlier  years)  the  probability  of  entrance  upon  a  secondary-school 
education  is  proportional  to  membership  in  the  leading  occupational 
groups  roughly  in  the  ratio  of  94,  86,  74,  67,  61,  54,  respectively, 
as  we  pass  from  the  nonmanual  to  the  manual  occupations. 

Inasmuch  as  it  is  exceedingly  improbable  that  boys  of  superior 
ability  predominate  in  the  nonmanual  classes  in  the  proportion 
indicated,  it  is  evident  that  here  is  one  source  of  the  leakage  of 
ability,  one  way  in  which  society  does  not  get  a  chance  to  subject 
all  of  its  sons  to  such  further  sifting  and  grading  as  is  involved 
in  the  revelations  of  aptitude  and  potency  made  during  a  high- 
school  course. 

The  answers  to  the  questions  relating  to  the  occupations  which 
the  boy  thinks  he  would  like  to  pursue  for  life,  together  with  his 
reasons,  are  interesting.  In  all,  990  boys  expressed  preference  for 
some  sort  of  work.  Of  these,  1 1 1  chose  each  their  father's  identical 
occupation,  or  about  1 1  per  cent.  Professional  occupations  were 
chosen  by  59  per  cent  of  the  boys  whose  fathers  were  professional 
men.  Of  the  mercantile  class  35  per  cent  chose  professional  occu- 
pations. Of  the  clerical  and  petty  mercantile  classes  30  and  26  per 
cent  chose  professional  occupations  respectively.  Of  the  artisan 


26 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


class  21  per  cent  and  of  the  laborer  class  16  per  cent  chose  such 
occupations.  Mercantile  employments  were  chosen  most  largely 
by  those  whose  fathers  were  so  engaged.  Skilled  manual  occupa- 
tions were  preferred  by  9  per  cent  of  the  sons  of  professional  men, 
1 5  per  cent  of  the  sons  of  merchants,  1 8  per  cent  of  the  sons  of 
petty  merchants,  2 1  per  cent  of  the  sons  of  clerical  employees,  and 
38  per  cent  of  the  sons  of  skilled  artisans. 


VOCATIONAL  PREFERENCES   OF  BOYS  WHOSE  FATHERS' 
OCCUPATIONS  WERE  AS   FOLLOWS 


SONS'  PREFERENCE 

PROFES- 
SIONAL 
PERCENT- 
AGE 

MERCAN- 
TILE 
PERCENT- 
AGE 

PETTY 
MERCAN- 
TILE 
PERCENT- 
AGE 

CLERICAL 
PERCENT- 
AGE 

ARTISAN 
PERCENT- 
AGE 

LABORER 
PERCENT- 
AGE 

AGRICUL- 
TURE 
PERCENT- 
AGE 

Professional    .     . 

59 

35 

26 

30 

21 

16 

7 

Mercantile      .     . 

6 

25 

II 

16 

5 

J3 

7 

Petty  mercantile  . 

o 

i 

5 

3 

I 

2 

7 

Clerical  .... 

6 

8 

18 

16 

19 

2O 

H 

Artisan  .... 

9 

15 

18 

21 

38 

25 

29 

Laborer      .     .     . 

o 

i 

0 

0 

I 

3 

0 

Agriculture     .     . 

9 

6 

3 

8 

5 

4 

29 

Other     .... 

ii 

9 

19 

6 

10 

i? 

7 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

While  the  cases  in  which  the  fathers  are  professional  men  are 
but  5  per  cent  of  the  whole  number  of  cases,  the  cases  where  sons 
wished  to  be  professional  men  are  28  per  cent,  or  5^  times  as 
many.  Fathers  who  were  in  the  mercantile  class  constitute  33  per 
cent,  sons  choosing  mercantile  occupations  constitute  14  per  cent, 
or  less  than  half  as  many ;  clerical  positions  were  filled  by  fathers 
in  6  per  cent  of  the  cases,  but  chosen  by  14  per  cent  of  the  boys. 
Fathers  in  the  artisan  class  were  28  per  cent,  the  boys  choosing 
to  be  artisans  24  per  cent.  Fathers  in  unskilled  manual  occupations 
were  10  per  cent  of  the  whole,  boys  choosing  such  were  i  per 


SOCIAL  WASTE  OF  UNGUIDED  ABILITY  27 

cent.  Fathers  in  agricultural  pursuits  were  I  per  cent,  sons  choosing 
agricultural  pursuits  were  6  per  cent. 

There  is  evident  in  these  figures  a  considerable  tendency  to 
choose  occupations  in  the  same  general  order  of  vocation  as  that 
in  which  the  father  is  employed ;  thus  three  fifths  of  the  sons  of 
professional  men  wish  to  be  professional  men,  one  fourth  of  the 
sons  of  merchants  wish  to  be  merchants,  two  fifths  of  the  sons  of 
artisans  wish  to  be  artisans.  A  still  more  pronounced  tendency, 
however,  is  to  choose  occupations  of  a  more  remunerative  or  intel- 
lectual and  less  manual  sort  than  those  followed  by  the  father. 
Thus  35  per  cent  of  the  boys  from  the  mercantile  class  want  to 
be  professional  men  ;  37  per  cent  of  the  boys  from  the  petty  mer- 
cantile class  wish  to  be  merchants  or  professional  men  ;  49  per 
cent  of  the  boys  from  the  clerical  class  want  to  enter  the  profes- 
sional or  mercantile  classes  ;  and  46  per  cent  of  the  sons  of  artisans 
wish  to  follow  nonmanual  or  clean-handed  occupations,  while  76 
per  cent  of  the  sons  of  unskilled  laborers  wish  to  be  artisans  or  to 
follow  the  nonmanual  occupations.  These  figures  illustrate  very 
clearly  the  relativity  of  vocational  ambitions.  These  statements  of 
preference  are  conditioned  by  the  vocational  viewpoint  established 
by  the  occupation  of  the  father. 

When  we  turn  to  specific  occupations  preferred  by  the  990  boys, 
the  results  indicate  that  the  adventurous,  the  out-of-doors,  the 
mechanical  or  electrical,  and  the  supposedly  profitable  professions 
and  crafts,  the  clean-handed  office  positions,  and  the  occupations 
involving  travel  are  strong  favorites.  The  list  of  occupations  pre- 
ferred by  ten  or  more  boys  is  found  on  page  28. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  the  vocational  horizon  impresses  the 
average  St.  Paul  boy  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  grades.  That  the 
emphasis  is  as  far  as  possible  from  that  placed  by  the  actual  de- 
mand for  workers  is  not  at  all  surprising  when  the  fact  is  considered 
that  these  boys  have  probably  never  received  a  half-hour's  formal 
instruction  in  their  lives  with  regard  to  vocational  matters,  and 
particularly  with  reference  to  the  preparation  and  qualifications 
requisite  for  the  various  tasks  to  which  they  vaguely  aspire. 

We  teach  our  youth  about  the  characteristics  of  geographical 
regions,  the  properties  of  numbers,  and  the  peculiarities  of 


28  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


OCCUPATIONS   PREFERRED 

Civil,  electrical,  mechanical,  and  mining  engineer 139 

Office  clerk,  bookkeeper,  and  stenographer 113 

Machinist  and  mechanic 77 

Lawyer 69 

Agricultural  pursuits 59 

Engineer  (locomotive  principally) 56 

Merchant  and  business  man 55 

Electrician 42 

Architect  and  draftsman       36 

Traveling  salesman 34 

Carpenter  and  cabinetmaker 30 

Physician 27 

Artistic  or  musical  pursuit .' 21 

Store  clerk 19 

Plumber  and  steam  fitter 17 

Printer 13 

Surveyor 12 

Banking 12 

Real  estate 1 1 

Druggist 10 

Scattering 138 

Total  reporting  preference 990 


language.  As  they  go  on  with  their  studies  we  teach  them  the 
characteristics  of  chemical  elements  and  compounds,  the  physical 
properties  of  bodies,  the  texture  and  mechanism  of  organic  struc- 
tures, both  vegetable  and  animal,  and  their  young  minds  unfold  in 
the  presence  of  a  world  richer  and  more  complicated  than  they 
had  ever  dreamed.  But  about  the  qualities  of  men  demanded  by 
the  world's  work,  about  the  rdle  played  by  tact,  by  ability  to  meet 
men,  by  differing  traits  and  tendencies  of  mind,  as  related  to  in- 
dividual success  in  specific  present-day  tasks,  we  teach  little.  That 
the  demands  of  one  profession  or  craft  are  radically  different  from 
those  of  another,  that  the  application  of  individual  endowment  to 
its  appropriate  task  is  a  tremendously  difficult  thing,  they  learn 
only  in  the  wasteful  school  of  experience. 

If  we  turn  from  aspirations  to  the  actual  "  choice,"  so  called,  of 
occupations  by  American  youth,  we  find  still  less  of  the  rational 
and  more  of  the  accidental.  As  Mr.  Everett  W.  Lord  of  the 


SOCIAL  WASTE  OF  UNGUIDED  ABILITY  29 

National  Child  Labor  Committee  (Proceedings,  1910,  pp.  80-8 1) 
has  put  it :  "  Boys  find  themselves  in  their  vocations  as  the  result 
of  custom,  heredity,  propinquity,  or  accident  far  oftener  than 
through  deliberate  and  conscious  choice."  Geographical  and  in- 
dustrial conditions,  for  example,  cut  out  the  work  of  whole  com- 
munities of  people  from  birth,  almost  without  option  on  their 
part,  as  Dr.  Peter  Roberts  has  shown  so  clearly  of  the  anthracite 
coal  communities. 

A  year  or  so  ago  Mr.  Lord  sent  out  "  several  hundred  letters  to 
people  engaged  in  various  occupations,  asking  them  to  answer 
certain  questions.  .  .  .  Among  the  answers  to  the  question,  '  Why 
did  you  choose  your  present  occupation  ? '  were  such  as,  '  Because 
that  was  what  the  other  boys  were  doing,'  'Because  I  happened 
to  get  a  job  at  that  trade,'  '  Because  that  was  the  principal  line  of 
work  near  my  home '  "  (ibid.  p.  79). 

After  a  time  quite  a  number  of  people  who  have  entered  occupa- 
tions haphazard  stumble  out  of  work  to  which  they  are  ill-adapted, 
and  somehow  stumble  into  other  work  for  which  they  are  better 
fitted.  Multitudes  of  other  individuals,  I  am  forced  to  believe, 
succeed  just  well  enough  at  some  ill-chosen  task  to  be  held  to  it 
until  readjustment  has  become  difficult  or  impossible. 

The  man  who  is  fortunate  enough  to  hit  it  in  selecting  or  being 
put  into  a  vocation  succeeds  if  he  has  good  abilities.  The  other 
man  of  equal  or  greater  abilities,  just  as  industrious,  self-controlled, 
or  sagacious,  who  does  not  strike  that  happy  confluence  of  circum- 
stances which  makes  his  efforts  bear  conspicuous  fruit,  plods  along, 
tasting  most  of  the  pleasures  of  life  in  the  pursuit  of  activities 
outside  of  his  trade  or  business  —  activities  or  interests,  whether 
domestic,  religious,  fraternal,  or  recreational,  which  engage  as  great 
capacities  as  the  successful  man  devotes  to  the  conspicuous  and 
interesting  problems  of  his  daily  work. 

After  this  somewhat  extended  although  imperfect  statement  of 
one  phase  of  the  problem  of  dormant  ability,  it  is  unnecessary  to 
do  more  than  point  out  the  very  great  significance  of  the  move- 
ment started  by  the  late  Professor  Frank  Parsons  of  Boston  and 
by  educators  in  several  sections  of  the  country  looking  toward  the 


30  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

provision  of  scientific  vocational  advice  for  young  people  as  a  part 
of  their  formal  preparation  for  life. 

In  conclusion,  the  following  paragraphs  may  serve  to  summarize 
the  points  which  have  been  emphasized  : 

1 .  Society  is  suffering  less  from  the  race  suicide  of  the  capable 
than  from  the  nonutilization  of  the  capacities  of  the  well  endowed. 

2.  One  half  of  our  male  population  is  not  carried  far  enough 
by  our  educational  system  even  to  see,  much  less  understand,  the 
vocational  opportunities  afforded  by  modern  life. 

3.  Of  those  boys  who  reach  the  last  years  of  the  elementary 
school  very    unequal  selection  is  made,  due  to  the  poverty,  lack 
of  foresight  and  outlook,  entailed  by  a  narrow  and  difficult  social 
environment. 

4.  In  their  preference  for  occupations  boys  are  guided  by  whim, 
contagious  admiration,  and  ambition  divorced  from  sound  reason 
oftener  than  by  a  perceived  compatibility  between  personal  traits 
and  the  requirements  of  tasks. 

5.  In  the  actual  selection  of  occupations  not  even  whimsical 
preferences  are  allowed  to  guide  in  very  many  cases,  but  rather 
the  first  remunerative  opening  in  the  local  industrial  mechanism 
determines  the  career  of  the  boy  quite  irrespective  of  taste  or 
aptitude. 

6.  From  these  causes  there  results  an  indefinitely  great  waste 
of  abilities  which  remain  in  some  cases  undiscovered  and  in  others 
misapplied. 

7.  While  equality  of  opportunity  cannot  be  provided  by  any 
mere  change  in  educational  methods,  yet  as  a  step  in  the  direction 
of  diffusing  the  opportunity  of  intelligent  vocational  outlook,  every 
boy  before  leaving  the  elementary  school  should  be  given  an  accu- 
rate idea  of  the  nature  of  the  principal  kinds  of  human  work,  the 
qualities  demanded  by  them,  the  preparation  required,  the  rewards 
offered,  the  advantages  and  the  opportunities  for  usefulness  which 
they  afford.     He  should,  moreover,  be  taught  the  rudiments  of 
self-appraisal  from  the  vocational  point  of  view  and  should  have 
the  benefit  of  counsel  with  a  professional  vocational  counselor  who 
is  thoroughly  informed  with  regard  to  the  industrial  opportunities 
of  the  community  and  the  means  of  entrance  thereupon. 


SOCIAL  WASTE  OF  UNGUIDED  ABILITY  31 

8.  And  last :  Better  vocational  adjustments  will  link  the  real 
interests  and  energies  of  the  spirit  with  productive  tasks  instead  of 
allowing  them  to  be  turned  to  merely  recreational  activities,  which 
in  the  cramped  monotony  of  industrial  communities  so  often  verge 
upon  the  unsocial  and  the  criminal.  Thus  new  energy  legitimately 
released  will  increase  the  material  conditions  of  happiness,  and 
make  men  better  neighbors  and  members  of  society  as  well. 


THE  WASTEFUL  RECRUITING  OF  TRADES  AND 
OCCUPATIONS 

By  N.  B.  DEARLE 
(From  "  Industrial  Training,"  published  by  P.  S.  King  &  Son,  London) 

The  occupations  so  far  considered  all  have  a  natural  excess  of 
boys,  and  fail  to  give  employment  after  boyhood  is  over  to  a  larger 
or  smaller  proportion  of  them.  In  the  third  phase  of  the  problem, 
this  surplus  is  produced  by  other  causes.  The  question  of  wasteful 
recruiting  will  be  considered  mainly  in  connection  with  the  skilled 
trades,  where  its  importance  is  greatest,  but  it  is  also  found  in 
many  others.  In  such  trades  learners  are  taken  in  the  ordinary 
way,  and  the  nature  of  the  employment  does  not  in  itself  require 
an  excess,  yet  more  will  enter  many  of  them  than  they  can  perma- 
nently retain,  and  what  is  more,  they  will  have  to  do  so  if  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  competent  men  is  to  be  provided.  This  surplus, 
therefore,  is  brought  about  by  the  failure  of  a  good  many  either  to 
learn  their  trade  at  all  or  to  learn  it  properly,  and  they  thus  grow  up 
without  proper  command  of  any  occupation.  Hence  this  is  caused 
by  failure  to  learn  where  the  opportunity  to  do  so  exists,  and  not, 
as  in  the  two  previous  cases,  by  the  lack  of  that  opportunity. 

Some  failures,  indeed,  there  must  always  be  in  every  trade,  and 
so  wasteful  recruiting  does  not  consist  in  their  existence,  but  in 
the  fact  that  they  are  far  more  numerous  than  can  be  accounted 
for  by  the  sprinkling  of  lazy  or  incompetent  boys  who  are  found 
everywhere.  In  short,  wasteful  recruiting  implies  the  spoiling  of 
much  good  material,  and  that  boys  start  to  learn  a  trade  —  some- 
times with  the  fairest  prospects  —  and  fall  out  by  the  way.  Hence, 
even  after  allowing  for  necessary  wastage,  the  production  of  a  given 
number  of  competent  workmen  requires  the  taking  of  a  consider- 
ably larger  number  of  boys ;  and  so  many  skilled  trades  have  a 

32 


THE  WASTEFUL  RECRUITING  OF  TRADES  33 

reserve  of  boy  labor.  It  is,  nevertheless,  the  extent  of  this  rather 
than  its  mere  existence,  that  constitutes  the  problem. 

As  thus  defined,  wasteful  recruiting  falls  into  two  classes : 
either  a  boy  fails  altogether  to  learn  his  trade,  or  he  grows  up  an 
incompetent  or  inferior  workman  ;  and  in  either  case  larger  num- 
bers enter  it  than  can  find  full  employment  later.  The  matter  may 
now  be  considered  in  detail. 

First  there  is  direct  misplacement  or  the  putting  of  boys  into 
unsuitable  trades  or  situations  —  either  into  the  wrong  trade  or 
into  the  wrong  shop  in  the  right  one.  Both  mistakes  are  common  ; 
and  as  regards  the  former,  parents  are  not  seldom  to  blame,  less 
for  want  of  interest  in  their  children  than  for  want  of  thought 
and  care.  The  first  thing  that  offers  or  that  occurs  to  them  is  too 
often  taken  without  reference  to  the  boy's  tastes  or  abilities,  and 
others  try  to  put  their  sons  into  positions  that  are  beyond  their 
capacity.  Often,  again,  nothing  is  done  until  they  have  actually 
left  school,  and  then  work  has  to  be  found  in  a  hurry ;  and  some- 
times the  thing  is  left  entirely  to  chance. 

Moreover,  considerable  difficulties  face  even  the  most  thoughtful. 
Good  openings  are  scarce,  and  some  of  them  appear  to  be  unprom- 
ising ;  whilst  a  boy  often  does  not  know  his  own  mind,  or  may  not 
be  specially  suited  to  anything  in  particular.  There  is  great  danger, 
too,  in  his  remaining  idle,  and  to  this  parents  are  quite  alive. 
"There  are  so  many  boys  after  jobs,"  said  one  mother,  "that  we 
thought  he  had  better  take  the  first  he  could  get."  Finally,  the 
right  job  is  hard  to  find,  and  neither  parent  nor  boy  knows  how 
to  find  it,  and,  till  recently,  there  has  been  little  organization  to 
help  them  to  do  so.  Anyhow,  whatever  the  cause,  the  effect  is  the 
same.  Going  to  the  wrong  trade,  the  boy  fails  to  master  it  and 
either  has  to  leave  it  altogether  or  content  himself  with  irregular 
employment. 

Even  in  a  suitable  trade  much  the  same  result  follows  from 
choice  of  the  wrong  type  of  shop.  If  it  does  inferior  work  or  lacks 
capacity  to  teach,  or,  still  more,  if  it  neglects  to  do  so,  a  boy  may 
come  out  of  his  time  little  better  off  than  when  he  entered  it. 
Here,  too,  parents  are,  or  have  been  till  recently,  very  badly  off  for 
expert  advice ;  but,  on  the  whole,  this  danger  is  not  quite  so  great 


34  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

as  the  first.  Being  suited  by  the  trade  and  possessing  the  capacity 
to  learn,  the  lads  only  need  to  get  the  chance,  and  the  abler  of 
them  make  one  for  themselves  by  moving  away  to  other  firms. 

For  these  and  other  reasons,  therefore,  it  is  quite  a  common  thing 
for  a  boy  to  leave  one  trade  for  another,  as  a  result  of  causes  which 
sometimes  are  and  sometimes  are  not  under  his  control.  The 
change  may  come  soon,  or  it  may  come  late,  but  sooner  or  later 
it  does  come.  The  chance  way  in  which  he  obtained  his  job  often 
ties  him  to  it  less  strictly  than  if  he  had  been  more  carefully  and 
formally  engaged.  So  he  goes  to  it  for  a  few  months,  for  a  year, 
perhaps  for  two,  and  learns  a  little.  Then  he  gets  tired  of  the 
work,  or  thinks  he  is  not  learning  quickly  enough,  or  has  a  row 
with  somebody,  or,  in  some  cases,  merely  wants  a  change,  and  off 
he  goes.  After  this  he  may  get  another  job  in  the  same  trade,  he 
may  start  in  a  different  one,  or  he  may  take  purely  unskilled  work  ; 
and  it  is  not  unusual  for  a  youth  to  nibble  at  several  trades  in  this 
way  with  spells  of  boy  labor  sandwiched  in  between  them. 

Moreover,  change  from  one  trade  to  another  is  sometimes  the 
only  alternative  to  long  periods  of  unemployment.  Where  there 
are  marked  seasonal  variations,  as  in  pianoforte  manufacture,  or 
where  the  work  of  individual  firms  comes  in  rushes,  boys  are  some- 
times treated  much  as  the  men  are,  and  are  dismissed  as  soon  as 
things  fall  slack,  though  many  firms  try  to  avoid  this.  This  forces 
them  into  other  jobs,  —  skilled  or  unskilled,  —  and  some  do  not 
return  with  the  busy  season  and  indeed  soon  contract  the  habit  of 
wandering  about  and  sticking  at  nothing.  Again,  a  long  spell  of 
unemployment  may  have  a  similar  effect,  and  so,  for  one  reason 
or  another,  many  leave  the  employment  which  they  started  to 
learn,  or,  if  they  do  not,  work  at  it  so  irregularly  as  to  become 
inferior  workmen. 

Further,  there  are  the  results  of  defective  training,  and  more 
especially  those  connected  with  the  casual  picking-up  of  a  trade. 
Though  not  unknown,  these  are  as  a  rule  least  serious  under  the 
more  definite  forms  of  regular  service.  They  are  more  consider- 
able under  its  other  types  and  in  the  case  of  following-up,  and 
probably  most  serious  under  migration.  To  a  few  of  the  abler 
boys,  indeed,  the  latter  may  give  as  good  a  training  as,  and  larger 


THE  WASTEFUL  RECRUITING  OF  TRADES  35 

earnings  during  its  course  than,  more  regular  methods,  discontinuity 
in  the  work  being  in  their  case  compensated  for  by  its  greater 
variety.  But  for  the  great  majority  its  dangers  outweigh  its  advan- 
tages. They  are  peculiarly  liable  to  unemployment,  as  they  are 
compelled  to  move  about  from  firm  to  firm.  They  are  left  too 
much  to  their  own  devices,  and  not  being  recognized  learners,  it 
is  no  man's  business  to  teach  them  ;  whilst  fear  of  cheap  labor 
may  set  their  fellow  workmen  against  them.  Many  leave  the  trade, 
and  still  more,  without  dropping  out  altogether,  grow  up  incompe- 
tent or  only  partially  taught.  "  I  object  to  a  boy  learning  as  an 
improver,"  one  foreman  said,  "  because  he  picks  his  trade,  so  to 
speak,  in  the  gutter." 

To  learn  properly  by  migration,  the  improver  has  to  choose 
carefully  the  kind  of  shops  he  goes  to  and  regulate  the  time  he 
stays  in  each  ;  but  many  stay  too  long  at  inferior  work,  or  select  a 
new  place  mainly  with  a  view  to  what  they  can  earn.  Further,  be- 
ing paid  as  workers  not  as  learners,  they  have  to  be  kept  on  what 
is  most. profitable  to  their  employers;  and,  particularly  when  paid 
piecework,  are  liable  to  acquire  wrong  methods  by  turning  out  in- 
ferior stuff  rapidly  and  in  a  slipshod  way.  The  necessary  changes 
of  job,  again,  create  the  habit  of  continually  changing,  and  lead  to 
loss  of  capacity  to  stick  steadily  to  anything. 

Finally,  the  attraction  of  immediate  high  earnings  causes  some 
to  neglect  to  learn  their  business  thoroughly.  Finding  employers 
offering  good  money,  especially  when  trade  is  brisk,  they  fail  to  see 
the  need  for  further  improvement.  Thus  between  1895  and  1900 
foremen  stonemasons  in  London  were  putting  on  almost  any  one 
who  could  handle  a  chisel,  and  young  men  were  always  changing 
firms  to  increase  their  wages.  Only  when  depression  came  did 
they  realize  their  shortcomings,  too  late  to  remedy  them.  In  silver- 
smithing,  again,  young  fellows  may  quickly  become  worth  253.  to 
303.  a  week  at  a  particular  kind  of  work,  at  which  they  will  stick 
and  never  learn  more. 

For  even  when  a  youth  js  at  pains  to  learn,  the  power  to  earn 
comparatively  high  wages  may  make  him  think  that  he  knows 
more  than  he  does,  or  that  having  learnt  one  section  of  a  trade 
well  he  has  learnt  sufficient.  And  if  some  of  the  more  thoughtful 


36  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

boys  fall  into  this  error,  others  simply  learn  a  part  of  the  business 
and  then  sacrifice  everything  to  earning  as  much  as  possible.  In- 
deed, some  instructors  in  the  trade  schools  are  so  alive  to  this  danger 
as  to  fear  even  the  payment  of  such  good  rates.  Here  the  result 
is  less  frequently  the  generally  inferior  workman  than  the  man  who 
can  do  only  certain  parts  of  a  trade.  As  the  most  serious,  therefore, 
the  case  of  migration  has  been  described  in  detail ;  but  much  that 
has  been  said  will  apply  also,  though  in  a  lesser  degree,  to  the  vari- 
ous forms  of  regular  service,  since  these  check,  but  do  not  always 
nor  altogether  prevent,  the  creation  of  a  reserve  of  boy  labor. 

Further,  there  is  often  waste  in  connection  with  those  unskilled 
jobs  about  an  industry,  which  can  and  sometimes  do  give  a  chance 
to  learn  it.  For  owing  to  incapacity  or  bad  behavior  or  failure  to 
stick  to  their  work,  boys  allow  chances  to  go  begging,  and  what 
might  be  the  making  of  a  few  boys  merely  provides  a  succession  of 
temporary  jobs,  which  lead  to  nothing,  for  a  much  larger  number. 
Again,  irregular  employment  of  improvers  often  creates  a  casual 
reserve  of  them,  and  in  certain  cases  individual  employers  find  it 
to  their  advantage  to  overstock  their  business  with  younger  workers. 

The  same  phenomenon  is  also  present  in  the  case  of  unskilled 
boy  labor,  where  it  is  largely  a  by-product  of  blind-alley  employ- 
ment. In  the  skilled  trades  far  more  boys  enter  than  learn,  not 
because  excessive  numbers  are  engaged,  though  in  some  trades 
this  cause  also  operates  to  a  certain  extent,  but  because  so  many 
fail  to  learn ;  and,  as  a  result,  a  reserve  of  boy  labor  has  to  grow 
up  to  insure  a  sufficient  supply  of  men  in  the  future.  The  chief 
elements  in  this  reserve  may  now  be  briefly  summarized  as  follows  : 
to  begin  with,  there  are  those  who  have  been  wrongly  placed  from 
the  very  first ;  secondly,  those  who  have  started  in  a  suitable  trade 
but  failed  to  stick  to  it ;  and,  thirdly,  those  who  have  failed  to 
learn  it  fully.  It  is  comprised  not  only  of  youths  who  drop  out 
before  or  after  reaching  manhood,  but  of  many  of  those  who  stay 
in  a  trade  as  irregular  or  low-paid  workers  ; 1  and  whilst  the  share 
contributed  by  each  single  cause  may  not  be  large,  the  total  reserve 

1  Because,  as  will  be  described  later,  more  of  such  men  are  required  for  a  given  output 
than  if  they  were  well  taught.  Hence  a  reserve  of  boys  sufficient  to  produce  this  greater 
number  is  required. 


THE  WASTEFUL  RECRUITING  OF  TRADES  37 

is  often  considerable.  Its  size  varies  from  trade  to  trade.  Where 
methods  of  teaching  are  well  regulated,  as  in  printing,  it  is  small ; 
where  the  most  haphazard  ones  prevail,  it  is  decidedly  large,  and 
it  frequently  reaches  appreciable  dimensions. 

Moreover,  this  reserve  is  not  simply  an  ordinary  reserve  of  cas- 
ual labor,  similar  to  that  which  occupies  so  prominent  a  place  in 
the  case  of  men.  Such  a  one  is  sometimes  found,  arising  partly  out 
of  the  irregular  employment  of  improvers  and  others  and  partly  from 
the  irregularity  of  the  lads  themselves.  Still,  taking  the  skilled 
trades  as  a  whole,  it  is  not  important.  The  real  reserve  of  boy 
labor  is  an  educational  one,  and  is  composed  of  those  who  are 
seeking  education  and  training  and  not  of  those  who  are  waiting 
for  employment. 

A  comparison  of  the  two  reserves  of  adult  and  juvenile  labor 
will  perhaps  most  clearly  explain  my  meaning.  The  former  may 
be  described  as  follows  :  Different  firms  in  a  trade  employ  a  num- 
ber of  men  which  varies  from  day  to  day,  whilst  each  of  them  tends 
to  be  busy  and  slack  on  different  days.  If,  therefore,  as  is  usually 
the  case,  they  do  not  get  their  less  regular  workers  from  a  com- 
mon source,  each  firm  attempts  to  attach  to  itself  a  supply  of  men 
sufficient  and  even  more  than  sufficient  for  its  maximum  require- 
ments. Hence  the  number  seeking  work  is  often  greater  than  can 
find  employment  even  on  the  busiest  day,  and  some  are  unem- 
ployed more  frequently  than  they  are  employed.  For  instance, 
suppose  ten  firms  require  each  a  number  of  men  that  varies  from 
50  to  100,  then  if  each  gets  its  own  absolutely  independently  of 
the  others,  they  will  have  altogether  1000  men  in  attendance  on 
them,  "  either  working  or  waiting  for  work  "  ;  and  as  their  busiest 
and  slackest  days  never  correspond,  the  whole  number  is  never 
working  on  any  one  day.  If,  on  the  contrary,  all  the  men  were 
drawn  from  a  single  center,  both  the  maximum  and  minimum 
number  would  fall  between  these  two  extremes,  being  say  800  and 
600  men  respectively.  Consequently,  on  the  busiest  day  there  is 
work  only  for  800,  but  under  existing  conditions  the  full  1000  are 
required.  With  careful  organization,  therefore,  200  of  them  could 
be  dispensed  with,  but  as  things  are,  with  each  individual  employer 
getting  his  own  separate  supply,  they  are  necessary  to  enable  all 


38  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

the  work  to  be  carried  out.  In  practice,  indeed,  there  is  nearly 
always  some  interchange  of  labor  between  different  firms,  though 
not  nearly  as  much  as  there  might  be,  and  so  the  reserve  of  labor 
is  still  considerable  ;  but  if  the  work  were  properly  organized,  this 
reserve  would  become  a  surplus  for  which  outlets  would  have  to 
be  found  elsewhere. 

Similarly,  in  recruiting  a  trade  a  certain  number  of  boys  are 
required  to  keep  it  up  and  to  allow  for  any  necessary  increase  in 
it,  and  also  for  wastage  by  death  and  in  other  ways.  Now  a  reserve 
of  boy  labor  is  found  when,  in  order  to  recruit  it,  more  than  the 
requisite  number  have  to  enter  it.  Under  normal  conditions,  there- 
fore, each  trade  tends  to  take  enough  learners  to  provide  an  ade- 
quate supply  of  workmen  in  the  next  generation ;  and  the  actual 
number  of  boys  necessary  for  this  purpose  corresponds  to  the  men 
actually  employed  on  the  busiest  day  in  the  previous  illustration. 
This  represents  also  the  total  capacity  of  a  trade  to  absorb  them, 
and  varies  from  one  to  another  according  to  its  rate  of  growth, 
the  expectation  of  life  of  its  members,  and  so  on. 

Now  if  the  methods  of  training  and  organization  were  perfect, 
just  this  number  would  be  required,  with  a  small  allowance  for 
deaths  and  unavoidable  cases  of  failure.  Actually  under  present 
conditions  more  and  sometimes  many  more  boys  have  to  enter 
the  trade,  since  otherwise  sufficient  journeymen  will  not  be  ob- 
tained. The  cause  of  these  numerous  failures  has  already  been 
described,  and  their  number  will  be  in  proportion  to  the  efficiency 
of  methods  of  training.  As  with  casual  adult  labor,  therefore,  the 
additional  boys  are  a  reserve  and  not  a  surplus,  since  under  present 
conditions  their  attempted  entry  is  necessary,  and  more  have  to 
try  to  learn  the  trade  than  could  find  regular  employment  at  it  if 
all  succeeded,  just  as  more  casual  laborers  have  to  be  seeking  work 
than  could  possibly  find  it  on  any  one  day. 

This  may  perhaps  be  made  clearer  by  a  hypothetical  illustration. 
A  trade  requires  so  many  learners  to  keep  up  its  supply  of  journey- 
men. Say,  for  instance,  that  the  number  is  105,  and  that,  allowing 
for  natural  wastage,1  100  of  them  become  journeymen.  But  a 

1  By  this  I  mean  such  wastage  as  is  caused  by  death,  illness,  accident,  emigration,  and 
other  unavoidable  causes  of  failure. 


THE  WASTEFUL  RECRUITING  OF  TRADES  39 

considerable  proportion  may  fail  to  learn  or  to  learn  properly,  and 
either  leave  the  trade  early,  fail  to  find  employment  as  men,  or 
only  obtain  it  when  business  is  brisk  and  better  men  are  not  avail- 
able. Instead  of  100  journeymen,  therefore,  the  trade  has  only 
100  less  these  failures.  If,  for  instance,  there  are  20  of  them, 
then  the  105  learners  only  make  80  instead  of  100  journeymen, 
and  to  get  the  latter  number,  something  like  1 30  learners  will  be 
needed.  These  figures  are  given  purely  by  way  of  illustration,  and 
the  size  of  the  reserve  can  seldom  be  so  large  as  this.  Often,  how- 
ever, it  is  considerable  ;  and  so  long  as  it  continues  to  be  required, 
there  must,  even  in  the  skilled  trades,  be  a  special  problem  of  boy 
labor,  and  entry  into  one  of  them  will  be  no  necessary  guarantee 
against  growing  up  without  an  occupation. 

Compared  with  the  reserve  of  adult  labor,  indeed,  this  juvenile 
one  is  small.  For  one  reason,  the  proportion  of  failures  is  more 
or  less  limited.  Employers  are  not  so  careful  to  provide  a  reserve 
of  boys  as  of  men,  simply  waiting  till  the  need  arises.  Then  if 
those  they  have  taken  do  not  prove  sufficient,  more  are  engaged 
or  provincial  workers  are  got  in.  Nevertheless,  the  reserve  of  boy 
labor  is  both  a  real  and  considerable  one,  and  until  the  causes  of 
wasteful  recruiting  are  removed,  the  necessity  of  taking  sufficient 
boys  for  all  emergencies  will  continue,  and  those  who  fail  to  learn 
will  have  to  be  replaced.  So  long,  therefore,  as  our  methods  of 
recruiting  produce  a  large  proportion  of  failures,  the  number  of 
boys  required  to  enter  a  trade  will  be  permanently  in  excess  of  the 
number  that  can  get  full  employment  at  it.  That  is  to  say,  modern 
conditions  bring  into  the  skilled  branches  of  a  trade  more  boys 
than  can  find  that  full  employment  in  it  as  men,  defining  it  for 
this  purpose  as  such  continuity  of  work  as  the  general  conditions 
of  the  trade,  including  its  seasonal  and  other  fluctuations,  will 
permit. 

The  same  result,  therefore,  is  reached  as  in  ordinary  blind-alley 
employments.  Each  alike  leaves  a  boy  stranded  in  early  manhood 
without  full  command  of  a  definite  occupation,  and  the  only  re- 
source left  either  to  the  mechanic  or  the  laborer  is  casual  or  low- 
paid  work  either  within  or  without  his  trade.  The  trouble,  however, 
.is  not  so  much  that  existing  methods  of  recruiting .  cause  more 


40  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

boys  to  enter  a  trade  than  it  can  permanently  absorb.  This  is  but 
a  part  of  the  evil,  and,  if  they  could  be  made  to  leave  it  before  it 
is  too  late,  but  a  small  part.  Indeed  some  boys  only  find  the  right 
trade  after  sampling  two  or  three  others.  The  chief  trouble,  on 
the  contrary,  is  either  that  they  stay  too  long  in  trades  to  which 
they  are  unsuited  —  until,  that  is,  it  is  too  late  to  find  another  • — -  or 
that  they  never  stick  to  any  but  continually  chop  and  change  and 
so  learn  nothing. 

In  conclusion,  the  elements  of  which  this  reserve  of  boy  labor 
is  composed  may.  be  shortly  described.  First  there  are  those  who 
drop  out  altogether  from  their  various  trades.  Some  do  so  after 
one  or  two  years,  and  others  nearer  the  time  when  they  reach  man- 
hood, whilst  yet  others  are  forced  out  by  stress  of  competition  after 
they  have  reached  it ;  and  further,  there  is  a  stream  of  boys  con- 
tinually entering  and  leaving  them.  Secondly,  some  who  are  able 
to  continue  in  a  trade  after  reaching  manhood  have  such  an  in- 
adequate knowledge  of  it  as  to  form  a  fringe  of  casual  workers 
whom  it  is  only  worth  an  employer's  while  to  employ  during  busy 
times,  or  for  a  few  days  a  week  as  odd  men ;  and  either  lack  of 
ability,  failure  to  stick  properly  to  the  work,  or  the  desire  for 
immediate  high  earnings,  may  produce  this  result. 

Thirdly,  instead  of  a  smaller  body  of  fully  trained  mechanics 
being  regularly  employed,  a  larger  number  who  are  partially  trained 
are  engaged  for  parts  of  the  year  only.  This  is  sometimes  the  fate 
of  the  overspecialized  workman.  In  various  trades  different  prod- 
ucts are  in  brisk  demand  at  different  periods  of  the  year,  and 
trade  is  busy  in  one  article  and  slack  in  another.  Hence  a  man 
who  can  only  make  one  thing  well  is  kept  during  its  busy  season, 
but  as  another  comes  into  demand,  someone  else,  who  is  equally 
specialized,  is  taken  on  to  make  it,  whilst  an  all-round  man  would 
simply  be  shifted  from  one  job  to  another  and  employed  continu- 
ously. In  short,  the  work  is  in  this  case  spread  out  among  a  larger 
number  of  workmen  who  are  employed  regularly  for  a  large  part 
of  the  year  but  unemployed  for  the  rest  —  four  men,  say,  work 
for  nine  months  each  instead  of  three  men  for  the  whole  twelve. 

Fourthly,  wasteful  recruiting  sometimes  produces  in  a  trade  a 
class  of  low-paid  but  regularly  employed  workmen.  Setting  aside 


THE  WASTEFUL  RECRUITING  OF  TRADES  41 

those  who  can  only  do  certain  of  the  roughest  kinds  of  work,  like 
the  men  who  are  paid  about  4d.  an  hour  to  paper  up  furniture 
previous  to  its  going  to  the  polishers,  there  are  others  who  can  do 
a  job  throughout,  but  their  output  is  so  poor  in  quantity  or  quality 
that  they  only  get  and  are  only  worth  inferior  wages.  Thus,  in 
cabinetmaking  or  upholstery  the  labor  cost  of  an  article  is  esti- 
mated, and  a  man  is  paid  according  to  the  time  he  takes  to  make 
it.1  Hence,  where  each  man's  output  is  small,  more  men  are  needed 
to  get  a  given  amount  of  work  done,  and  the  reserve  of  labor  takes 
this  form. 

Moreover,  the  growth  of  these  classes  of  workers  not  only  creates 
a  reserve  directly,  but  indirectly  also  by  its  effect  on  the  methods  of 
employment.  Often,  both  in  London  and  elsewhere,  the  choice 
between  the  regular  employment  of  fully  competent  men  and  the 
less  regular  employment  of  those  who  are  not  is  largely  a  question 
of  supply.  In  most  trades  both  methods  are  open  to  the  employer, 
who  may  be  in  a  position  either  to  regularize  his  work  and  keep 
good  men  steadily  occupied,  or  to  casualize  it ;  and  which  is  the 
more  profitable  process  may  be  determined  by  the  quality  of  the 
labor  available.  If  business  is  brisk  and  there  is  an  adequate  sup- 
ply of  good  men,  regularization  is  likely.  Where,  however,  wasteful 
recruiting  provides  a  large  reserve  of  inferior  or  not  fully  compe- 
tent hands,  especially  if  this  is  accompanied  by  some  shortage  of 
really  good  men,  casualization  follows  for  the  purpose  of  making 
the  most  profitable  use  of  the  labor  supply.  As  a  result  both  the 
reserve  of  labor  and  its  irregular  training  tend  to  increase  and 
perpetuate  themselves. 

To  sum  up,  therefore,  the  reserve  of  boy  labor  is  not  confined 
to  those  who,  in  the  course  of  learning  it,  are  compelled  to  leave 
a  trade.  It  is  composed  in  part  of  them,  and  partly  consists  of  the 
greater  number  of  men  who  are  required  to  do  the  work  when 
they  are  not  properly  trained.  Its  size  must  not  be  exaggerated, 
but  when  all  its  elements  are  added  together  it  constitutes  in 
many  trades  a  problem  of  considerable  gravity. 

1  Say,  for  instance,  the  labor  cost  of  upholstering  a  certain  kind  of  chair  is  estimated  at 
ios.,  then  a  man  who  will  undertake  to  do  it  in  ten  hours  will  be  paid  is.  per  hour,  in  twelve 
hours  iod.,  in  fifteen  hours  8d.,  in  twenty  hours  6d.,  and  so  on. 


42  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

One  special  point  remains  to  be  considered.  It  has  been  stated 
that  when  a  boy  drops  out  of  a  trade,  another  has  to  be  taken  to 
fill  his  place,  and  similar  allowance  has  to  be  made  in  order  to  pro- 
vide a  sufficient  number  of  those  who  are  only  fit  for  casual  or 
irregular  work.  This  is  the  usual  course  of  events,  though,  in  rare 
cases,  an  insufficient  supply  of  fresh  labor  may  cause  a  shortage 
of  it.  Taking  the  country  as  a  whole,  this  view  holds  good,  but  in 
London  the  provincial  influx  complicates  the  matter.  Instead  of 
engaging  other  boys  to  replace  those  who  fail,  London  employers 
frequently  get  in  men  from  elsewhere,  many  of  them  indeed  rely- 
ing mainly  on  provincials,  and  take  very  few  learners  ;  but  it  is 
only  the  source  of  supply  that  is  altered,  and  neither  the  waste  nor 
the  reserve  of  boys  is  appreciably  diminished,  though  the  number 
of  good  openings  may  be.  Moreover,  the  causes  that  produce  this 
waste  still  further  increase  this  preference  for,  and  reliance  on,  pro- 
vincial workmen,  and  reduce  the  opportunities  for  advancement  of 
the  London  boy. 

The  causes  and  results  of  wasteful  recruiting  have  been  treated 
mainly  in  relation  to  the  skilled  trades,  but  are  also  at  work  upon 
unskilled  boy  labor,  though  here  they  are  perhaps  best  regarded 
as  an  incident  of  blind-alley  employment.  In  the  former  these 
causes  include  defective  methods  of  teaching,  wrong  selection  of  a 
trade,  restlessness,  and  lack  of  steadiness.  In  the  latter  there  is 
little  or  no  teaching,  little  or  nothing  to  look  forward  to,  and  both 
responsibility  and  foresight  are  at  a  minimum.  Employers  com- 
plain that  they  cannot  keep  their  boy  laborers,  and  this  "  obscures 
from  them  the  fact  that  they  are  using  a  greater  number  than  can 
be  employed  in  their  trade  as  men."  Continual  movement  from 
firm  to  firm  creates  a  reserve  of  labor  in  the  group  of  blind  alleys 
taken  as  a  whole,  and  also  involves  many  lads  in  longer  or  shorter 
spells  of  unemployment,  whilst  some  employers  have  difficulty  in 
getting  boys.  Now  many  boys'  jobs  are  themselves  steady  and 
regular,  and  a  smaller  number  might  quite  well  suffice  to  do  the 
work  of  them  ;  but  as  it  is,  a  reserve  inevitably  grows  up. 


THE  LARGER  EDUCATIONAL  BEARINGS  OF 
VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

BY  GEORGE  HERBERT  MEAD,  PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY,  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO,  CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 

(An  Address  delivered  at  the  Third  National  Conference  on  Vocational 
Guidance,  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan,  1913) 

The  school  is  an  institution  fashioned  as  other  institutions.  It 
has  its  roots  in  the  past.  It  has  held  its  own  in  the  midst  of  con- 
tentions and  against  hostile  forces  by  being  what  it  is.  It  has  been 
conscious  of  its  value  for  society  because  of  its  past  and  has  found 
its  courage  and  self-respect  in  its  accomplishments.  Especially  the 
public  schools  of  a  democracy  such  as  ours  have  had  need  of  a 
strong  hold  upon  its  traditions.  Our  democracy  has  been  suspicious 
of  the  standards  of  a  learning  and  a  literary  art  that  belong  to  an 
upper  class,  and  of  the  standard  of  an  efficiency  that  arose  out  of 
a  bureaucratic  government. 

Our  school  system  has  had  its  own  practical  traditions  ;  and 
where  it  has  added  to  its  earlier  meager  curriculum,  the  addition 
has  been  frequently  without  any  controlling  principle.  We  have 
been  very  proud  of  our  American  common  public  school,  but  we 
have  never  been  quite  clear  what  our  schools  have  done  for  us,  nor 
from  just  what  standpoint  we  should  criticize  them.  They  have 
been  the  bulwark  of  our  liberties,  but  we  have  been  very  generally 
unwilling  that  they  should  undertake  more  than  the  drill  in  the 
three  R's.  When  we  have  overloaded  their  curricula,  and  the 
cry  has  arisen  against  the  "fads  and  frills,"  there  has  been  no 
definite  conception  of  what  they  should  do  by  which  we  can  test 
the  demands  of  rival  educational  theories. 

To  a  large  extent  the  educational  policy  of  most  of  our  large 
cities  has  represented  a  fluctuating  compromise  between  forces  that 

43 


44  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

have  been  by  no  means  all  educational  forces.  This  situation  is 
common  to  our  popular  education  and  to  our  popular  government. 
We  know  that  they  are  precious  institutions,  but  we  treat  them 
with  a  great  deal  of  good-humored  ridicule.  They  are  the  palladia 
of  our  liberties,  but  concretely  we  have  not  wished  to  have  to  take 
them  too  seriously.  The  school-teacher  and  the  politician  have  been 
standing  subjects  for  the  wit  of  humorous  papers. 

But  a  change  has  come  about  in  our  attitude  toward  our  govern- 
mental institutions.  It  is  a  great  deal  clearer  to  us  what  these  insti- 
tutions should  and  can  do.  We  may  not  be  any  clearer  as  to  the 
fundamental  theories  of  government,  but  the  community  now  knows 
that  popular  government  is  itself  our  most  precious  treasure  and  it 
is  becoming  aware  that  this  precious  institution  can  be  called  upon 
to  do  certain  specific  things. 

Industrial  education  and  vocational  guidance  mark  the  points  at 
which  our  public  schools  are  making  such  contact  with  actual  life 
that  the  community  may  intelligently  criticize  the  schools  and  con- 
trol them  in  something  like  the  same  sense  that  it  may  control  the 
management  of  technical  departments  of  our  governing  bodies. 

Fruitful  contact  implies  primarily  that  the  community  shall  be 
able  to  pass  in  certain  respects  intelligent  criticism  upon  the  school, 
criticism  which  the  school  authorities  will  themselves  seek  and  of 
which  they  will  be  able  to  make  profitable  use.  This  implies  further 
that  the  school  life  reaches  back  into  the  home  and  the  community 
of  which  the  home  is  a  part  and  out  into  the  occupations  which  the 
children  enter  when  they  leave  the  school.  Lack  of  such  intelli- 
gence and  such  connection  between  the  school  and  the  life  of  the 
community  is  evidenced  in  a  type  of  criticism  with  which  we  are 
familiar.  These  criticisms  gather  mainly  about  the  lack  of  drill  in 
the  three  R's.  Spelling,  number  work,  and  English,  we  are  told, 
are  slovenly ;  the  graduates  of  neither  the  grades  nor  the  high 
schools  can  write  a  fairly  respectable  letter  ;  the  commonest  words 
are  misspelled ;  the  English  is  atrocious ;  the  ability  to  cast  up  a 
simple  column  of  figures  is  lamentably  absent ;  and  yet  the  chil- 
dren are  so  possessed  with  a  sense  of  their  own  competence  that 
they  can  not  be  corrected  nor  taught  in  the  offices  where  they  are 
employed.  The  cry  arises  at  once  that  the  curriculum  is  stuffed 


BEARINGS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  45 

with  comparatively  useless  subjects  while  the  weightier  matters 
of  essential  importance  for  vocations  are  neglected. 

The  school  authorities  are  compelled  to  bear  the  onslaught  of 
this  irresponsible  criticism.  Their  critics  hark  back  to  the  good  old 
years  when  the  simpler  courses  of  study  and  the  sturdier  discipline 
of  the  rod  brought  forth  the  results  so  lacking  in  our  degenerate 
days.  They  continue  thus  to  criticize,  though  actual  proof  from  the 
tests  of  the  schools  of  our  grandfathers  clearly  indicates  that  the 
children  came  out  of  these  more  Spartan  institutions  less  well- 
equipped  even  in  the  three  R's  than  are  the  graduates  of  our  own 
grades.  These  attacks  upon  the  schools  are  recurrent.  Each  year 
when  the  employer  of  boys  and  girls  loses  control  of  the  irritation 
caused  by  youthful  incompetence  he  is  apt  to  pour  out  his  wrath 
on  the  institutions  from  whose  hands  he  receives  his  employees. 

Unfortunately  the  relation  between  the  school  and  the  occupation 
has  been  so  slight  that  the  comment  and  criticism  called  out  by  the 
child's  failure  to  fit  into  the  machinery  of  the  office,  the  shop,  or 
the  factory  has  little  value  beyond  the  registration  of  friction  and 
of  the  need  of  adjustment.  It  is  not  illuminating  comment  and 
criticism.  The  teacher  naturally  resents  the  implication  that  the 
child's  entire  education  should  consist  in  drills  in  spelling,  penman- 
ship, and  figuring,  flanked  by  stenography,  typewriting,  and  cata- 
loguing. If  the  child's  employer  is  to  have  and  express  an  opinion 
upon  the  child's  school  training,  that  opinion  must  be  more  en- 
lightened and  more  improved  by  interest  in  the  child's  entire  welfare. 
The  teachers,  failing  to  find  such  all-round  judgment  in  members 
of  the  community  who  employ  the  graduates  of  our  public  schools, 
naturally  come  to  regard  themselves  as  the  only  competent  judges 
of  what  the  school  training  should  be. 

Fortunately  this  gap  between  the  community  and  the  school 
has  been  bridged  at  a  number  of  points.  The  schools  have  under- 
taken a  certain  amount  of  vocational  training,  and  upon  strictly 
vocational  training  the  comment  and  criticism  of  those  representing 
these  specific  vocations  is  felt  to  be  pertinent.  It  has  been  even 
in  some  degree  sought  by  the  school  itself.  Out  of  this  interplay 
have  arisen  various  departments  of  vocational  training,  such  as 
technical  high  schools  and  commercial  high  schools.  In  touch  with 


46  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

these  schools  the  business  and  technical  men  have  formed  advisory 
boards  for  consultation  with  the  teaching  and  administrative  forces 
of  the  school,  both  as  to  curriculum  and  as  to  the  actual  conduct 
of  the  training  itself,  and  the  teacher,  on  the  other  hand,  has  on 
occasion  followed  the  child  in  his  first  entrance  into  work,  at  times 
guarding  the  child's  interests  and  himself  getting  concrete  material 
for  the  subject  matter  of  the  schoolroom  work.  The  commercial 
high  schools  in  Boston  and  in  Cleveland  and  the  technical  schools 
in  a  number  of  our  cities  are  illustrations  of  institutions  in  which 
the  occupational  training  already  present  in  the  school  has  not  only 
been  improved  by  this  technical  outside  interest  and  cooperation, 
but  in  which  the  vocational  training  has  become  more  educative  and 
cultural  than  it  was  when  it  lacked  this  outer  stimulus  to  efficiency. 

The  inference  from  this  is  that  what  we  have  lacked  in  the  com- 
munity's complaints  against  school  training  has  been  a  larger  and 
more  fruitful  contact  between  the  school  training  and  the  social 
situation  for  which  the  child  is  trained. 

No  one  will  assume  that  such  instances  as  these  solve  all  the 
many  problems  of  education  which,  old  and  rising  in  novel  forms, 
face  the  teachers  and  administrators  of  our  great  public-school  sys- 
tems. A  very  large  number  of  our  school  children  are  not  and  can- 
not be  oriented  toward  such  specific  occupations  that  their  training 
can  be  made  frankly  vocational,  and  we  would  be  turning  our  backs 
upon  the  best  educational  traditions  if  we  should  separate  those  who 
graduate  from  the  grades  or  the  high  schools  into  shops  and  offices 
from  those  who  will  continue  their  scholastic  training  or  who  have 
no  specific  vocations  before  them.  A  democratic  education  must 
hold  together  the  boys  and  girls  of  the  whole  community  ;  it  must 
give  them  the  common  education  that  all  should  receive,  so  diver- 
sifying its  work  that  the  needs  of  each  group  may  be  met  within 
the  institution  whose  care  and  generous  ideals  shall  permeate  the 
specialized  courses,  while  the  more  academic  schooling  may  be  vivi- 
fied by  the  vocational  motive  that  gives  needed  impulse  to  a  study 
which  may  be  otherwise  unmeaning  or  even  deadening. 

Vocational  training  came  into  the  American  school  system  some- 
what tardily,  but  it  has  at  last  passed  the  door.  It  is  true  that  it 
still  remains  a  question  whether  in  the  immediate  future  it  will  be 


BEARINGS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  47 

frankly  recognized  as  an  integral  part  of  our  public-school  work 
under  a  single  direction,  or  whether,  under  a  separate  direction,  it 
is  to  be  kept  outside  the  organized  system  of  public  education. 

However  this  question  may  be  answered  in  the  immediate  future, 
I  cannot  believe  that  eventually  it  will  be  possible  to  keep  separate 
two  sides  of  the  training  of  children  which  in  material  and  method 
supplement  each  other  —  as  theory  and  practice,  as  material  and 
interpretation,  as  technique  and  application. 

There  is  a  further  powerful  argument  against  the  separation  of 
vocational  training  from  academic  training  in  the  public  school, 
and  that  is  that  vocational  training  has  made  the  contact  with  the 
community  conditions  under  which  this  education  is  to  be  used  and 
has  thus  brought  itself  into  a  normal  situation  within  which  it  must 
be  checked  and  tested  by  its  results.  It  is  just  this  contact  which 
our  public-school  training  for  life  has  hitherto  lacked.  In  so  far  as 
vocational  training  and  public  schooling  can  become  a  part  of  the 
same  educational  process,  just  so  far  will  the  benefits  of  this  close 
functional  relation  between  the  children's  training  and  the  life  of 
the  community  pass  over  to  all  parts  of  the  preparation  of  our  chil- 
dren for  life.  I  know  of  no  answer  that  can  be  made  to  this  argu- 
ment except  one  which  must  maintain  that  vocational  training  may 
not  be  educational,  and  that  the  more  academic  subjects  of  the 
school  curriculum  have  no  organic  place  in  the  curriculum  of  voca- 
tional training  —  contentions  which  the  best  vocational  training 
in  this  country  and  in  Europe  abundantly  disproves. 

It  is  to  the  other  phase  of  this  contact  of  the  school  with  the  com- 
munity to  which  I  wish  to  direct  especial  attention,  the  answering 
phase  of  vocational  guidance.  I  hope,  however,  it  has  been  suffi- 
ciently emphasized  that  vocational  training  and  vocational  guidance 
are  normally  linked  together.  Through  these  two  doors  the  com- 
munity gains  admittance  to  the  school. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  evidence  that  the  community  through 
vocational  guidance  is  able  to  cooperate  healthfully  with  the  school 
and  exercise  a  legitimate  criticism  in  the  process  is  found  in  the 
fact  that  the  school  more  or  less  unwittingly  has  been  itself  a  voca- 
tional guide,  has  been  determining  what  occupations  many  of  the 
children  who  leave  school  shall  enter,  and  the  further  fact  that  this 


48  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

unwitting  guidance  and  direction,  just  because  it  has  been  largely 
unintentional,  has  been  in  no  small  degree  unfortunate  for  the 
children.  In  so  far  as  the  school  has  fitted  its  pupils  to  enter  one 
occupation  rather  than  another,  just  so  far  it  is  guiding  them  to 
this  vocation. 

If  the  school  had  in  the  past  as  deliberately  trained  the  children 
in  the  mechanical  arts,  had  centered  its  study  of  history  as  diligently 
around  the  growth  of  industry,  had  studied  the  industries  in  the 
community  as  earnestly  as  it  has  trained  them  in  the  arts  of  the 
office  and  the  counter,  as  it  has  organized  its  study  of  history  about 
literature  and  politics,  as  it  has  studied  the  careers  of  its  successful 
politicians,  warriors,  and  literary  men,  it  would  unquestionably  have 
been  guiding  them  toward  the  mechanical  occupations.  But  the 
school  has  uncritically  accepted  the  general  attitude  of  the  com- 
munity that  each  child  should  take  advantage  of  the  unequaled 
opportunities  that  America  has  offered  of  getting  up  in  the  world  ; 
and  the  uncritical  assumption  back  of  this  attitude  has  been  that 
the  upward  path  lay  away  from  the  labor  of  the  hands  and  led  toward 
the  labor  of  the  wits,  and  that  these  were  trained  by  the  uses  of 
language  and  mental  arithmetic.  Success  has  generally  meant 
achievement  in  business,  in  politics,  or  in  one  of  the  professions ; 
and  the  schools,  apart  from  the  generalities  found  in  its  reading 
books  or  heard  from  its  rostra  concerning  the  nobility  of  labor  and 
the  beauties  of  the  simple  life,  have  unconsciously  adjusted  them- 
selves to  those  callings  in  which  lay  the  opportunities  for  the  suc- 
cessful man.  The  training  in  these  branches  has  not  been  extensive, 
but  it  used  to  be  the  boast  of  our  American  society  that  the  ground- 
ing of  the  three  R's  gained  in  the  common  school  was  all  that  was 
needed  for  the  energetic  man  ;  that  he  had  much  better  get  the 
rest  of  his  vocational  training  in  business  or  politics  than  in  the 
school ;  while  the  professional  man  must  gain  his  technique  in 
professional  training  schools. 

While  the  curricula  of  both  the  elementary  and  the  secondary 
schools  have  been  immensely  enriched,  especially  in  those  subjects 
which  are  termed  cultural,  the  trend  of  the  training  has  continued 
to  be  toward  business,  politics,  or  further  preparation  for  college 
or  professional  study.  It  has  followed  very  naturally  from  this 


BEARINGS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  49 

that  the  children  find  themselves  directed  toward  office  work,  and 
that  when  training  is  offered  in  mechanical  arts  side  by  side  with 
the  technique  of  office  work  the  training  for  the  white-collar  jobs 
is  the  more  attractive.  The  schools  growing  up  in  the  traditions 
of  the  American  community  have  been  guiding  the  children  toward 
a  certain  type  of  vocation. 

We  have  referred  to  positive  guidance.  There  is  a  negative 
guidance,  which  is  the  more  serious,  because  it  arises  from  a  lack 
of  vocational  training  or  direction.  In  the  schools  of  the  country 
at  large  between  40  and  50  per  cent  of  the  children  in  the  ele- 
mentary schools  are  eliminated  before  they  have  finished  the  grades 
— 'that  is,  before  they  have  acquired  a  common-school  education. 
It  is  the  judgment  of  those  who  have  studied  these  children 
that  they  are  not  able  to  retain  even  the  meager  acquirements  of 
the  lower  grades.  They  are  less  capable  readers  and  writers  of 
English  and  less  capable  figurers  in  the  years  after  they  have  left 
school  than  they  were  in  the  school  itself.  They  constitute  an  in- 
considerable fraction  of  those  who  attend  the  night  schools.  They 
have  not  that  minimum  of  education  which  our  common-school 
system,  with  the  compulsory  attendance  regulations,  contemplates. 
They  are  not  fitted  for  any  but  the  unskilled  vocations ;  and  our 
community,  in  leaving  the  schools  with  their  predominantly  aca- 
demic curricula,  their  direction  toward  only  one  type  of  vocation, 
and  the  inadequate  laws  governing  school  attendance,  is  much  more 
effectively  guiding  these  unfortunate  graduates  of  the  fourth,  fifth, 
and  sixth  grades  toward  the  unskilled  occupations  than  any  system 
of  vocational  training  could  guide  its  graduates  into  the  skilled  trades. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  community  to  avoid  the  task  of  guidance. 
If  it  is  not  undertaken  consciously  and  with  adequate  forethought, 
the  schools,  from  the  very  nature  of  school  training,  its  adaptation 
or  lack  of  adaptation  to  the  occupations  of  the  community,  its 
success  or  failure,  will  determine  in  large  degree  what  doors  shall 
be  open  or  closed  to  those  who  leave  school.  The  aptitudes  and 
ambitions  gained  in  school  and  from  the  surrounding  neighbor- 
hoods shape  the  children's  possible  careers. 

This  guidance  must  be  incomplete  even  when  the  school  system 
frankly  recognizes  its  duty  toward  vocational  training.  It  is  through 


50  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

the  door  of  the  vocational  guidance  and  training  that  the  school 

enters  into  immediate  concrete  contact  with  the  homes  and  neigh- 

borhoods from  which  the  children  come,  as  well  as  with  the  in- 

dustries into  which  they  enter,  and  the  meaning  for  the  school  of 

this  contact  is  not  exhausted  when  it  undertakes  various  types 

-of  training  in  the  industrial  and  household  arts.    The  destination 

I  of  the  particular  child  cannot  be  left  to  his_jayji 


*J    ment  or  whim  ;  nor  is  the  teacher  alone  a  competent  judge-:  nor 
/    can  the  decision  be  safely  left  to  the  parents  alone—    in.  whose 

7-  The  experience  in  vocational  guidance  in  England  and  in  this 
country  is  conclusive  upon  this  point.  The  parent,  the  social  worker 
who  so  frequently  must  help  parents  to  interpret  their  social  situa- 
tion, the  teacher,  and  someone  who  understands  the  labor  market 
for  children  and  the  character  of  the  occupations,  especially  what 
they  have  to  offer  the  employees  in  the  future,  must  get  together 
if  the  best  possible  chance  is  to  be  offered  the  child.  This  is 
especially  true  if  the  child  leaves  school  with  but  little  training 
and  faces  a  market  for  only  unskilled  labor.  To  find  that  opening 
which  carries  with  it  some  training  in  skill,  some  future  beyond 
the  minimum  wage,  which  avoids  the  blind  alleys  and  the  many 
pitfalls  that  child  labor  so  abundantly  provides,  to  find  this  opening 
for  the  immature  child  who  goes  out  to  work  for  the  community 
under  the  least  satisfactory  conditions,  is  surely  the  common  duty  of 
the  school  and  of  the  community.  And  it  is  an  individual  task  that 
has  a  new  character  with  each  child.  It  cannot  be  undertaken  or 
carried  out  in  a  wholesale  manner.  No  child  should  leave  school  to 
go  to  work  without  the  benefit  of  all  the  guidance  which  those  who 
have  reared  and  taught  and  are  about  to  employ  him  can  give.  The 
meagerness  of  the  training  which  we  can  give  the  majority  of  our 
children  emphasizes  this  duty.  It  is  further  emphasized  by  the 
value  for  society  of  the  human  material  with  which  we  are  dealing. 
But  in  our  interest  in  the  particular  child  we  must  not  overlook 
the  immense-  value  which  such  interest  should  have  for  the  school 
itself.  It  is  the  process  by  which  the  institution  of  the  school 
passes  from  its  fixed  dogmatic  stage  into  that  of  a  working  insti- 
tution that  has  come  to  consciousness  and  can  test  its  methods 


BEARINGS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  51 

and  presuppositions  by  its  results.  For  in  this  task  of  guiding  the 
individual  child  into  his  occupation,  the  school  faces  its  own  accom- 
plishment tested  by  the  most  important  value  which  society  pos- 
sesses, its  future  citizen.  The  standpoint  for  the  judgment  of  the 
school  and  all  its  works  is  inevitably  given  in  the  conscientious 
attempt  to  guide  the  particular  child  into  the  best  occupation  he 
can  find  in  view  of  his  training  and  background. 

It  is  upon  this  phase  of  vocational  guidance  that  I  wish  to  insist 
—  its  value  for  the  school.  Its  importance  for  the  individual  child 
is  too  evident  to  need  argument  or  rhetoric.  The  obligation  of  the 
community  that  employs  the  child ;  that  too  often  exploits  him  ; 
that  turns  him  loose  upon  the  streets  at  the  age  of  fourteen  and 
refuses  him  any  employment  with  a  future  until  he  is  sixteen ; 
that  invests  great  sums  in  an  education  which  half  the  time  it 
does  not  carry  to  the  point  of  adequate  return  either  to  the  child 
or  to  the  community  —  the  obligation  of  this  community  to  reach 
out  its  hand  to  the  child  and  guide  him  to  the  most  favorable 
opening  is  also  evident  enough  ;  the  only  difficulty  is  to  find  the 
corporate  bodies  of  the  community  upon  whom  this  obligation  can 
be  fastened.  To  a  very  large  extent  this  sense  of  responsibility 
has  come  home  only  to  the  social  worker  whose  interest  in  the 
child  and  his  family  has  made  his  individual  case  real  and  press- 
ing. Even  the  employer  has  come  to  realize  in  some  cases  the 
value  of  vocational  guidance  to  the  business  that  employs  the  child. 
The  teachers  who  inevitably  feel  a  genuine  interest  in  their  pupils 
will,  if  they  are  able,  extend  this  interest  to  these  most  crucial 
moments  in  the  child's  career  —  when  he  seeks  his  first  job. 
Beyond  this  human  interest  there  is  the  import  to  the  school  of 
this  first  test  of  the  child's  training.  The  test,  of  course,  is  that 
of  the  whole  educational  process  and  it  affords  ground  to  criticize 
the  age  at  which  the  child  comes  to  school,  the  whole  training 
given  in  the  school,  the  age  of  leaving  school,  the  forms  of  occu- 
pation these  factors  prescribe  for  the  child,  and  the  care  of  the 
child  after  he  has  left  the  schoolhouse  up  to  the  time  of  the 
completion  of  his  training  for  his  occupation. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  our  schools  are  still  in  one  respect 
medieval.  They  assume  more  or  less  consciously  that  they  are 


52  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

called  upon  to  indoctrinate  their  pupils,  and  that  the  doctrine 
which  they  have  to  instill  —  whether  it  be  that  of  language,  num- 
ber, history,  literature,  or  elementary  science  —  is  guaranteed  as 
subject  matter  for  instruction  by  its  own  truth,  by  its  traditional 
position  in  the  school  curriculum,  and  finally  by  its  relation  to  the 
rest  of  the  ideas,  points  of  view,  artistic  products,  historical  monu- 
ments, which  together  make  up  what  we  call  our  culture.  These 
tests  of  subject  matter  in  instruction  may  be  fairly  called  internal 
and  do  not  carry  the  judgment  of  the  pedagogue  out  of  the  school- 
house.  The  subject  matter  is  determined,  then,  in  a  real  sense  by 
authority,  and  it  follows  that  when  the  results  of  the  training  are 
disappointing,  the  pedagogue  feels  that  he  is  secure  within  his 
institution  and  can  calmly  pass  the  charge  of  inefficient  training 
on  to  other  social  agents  and  conditions.  No  one  will  question  the 
legitimacy  of  these  tests  if  they  are  recognized  as  organic  parts  of 
the  larger  test  of  the  working  of  the  child's  school  training  when 
brought  up  against  its  use  in  practice. 

The  medieval  character  of  the  school  is  shown  in  the  separation 
of  the  institution,  which  has  the  doctrines  of  education  intrusted 
to  it,  from  the  other  training  processes  in  which  the  intellectual 
content  is  at  a  minimum  and  the  practical  facility  is  at  a  maximum. 
In  the  real  sense  the  doctrine  which  the  school  inculcates  should 
be  continually  tried  out  in  the  social  experience  of  the  child  — 
there  should  be  a  play  back  and  forth  between  formal  training 
and  the  child's  actual  conduct.  Until  this  is  brought  about  the 
school  will  continue  to  be  in  some  degree  medieval  and  scholastic ; 
but  every  fresh  contact  with  the  situation  of  the  child  who  has  been 
imbibing  the  doctrine  and  now  must  make  use  of  his  training  in 
his  social  world  outside  is  of  immense  value  in  enabling  us  to 
bring  the  child's  training  as  a  whole  a  little  nearer  the  normal 
education  of  the  citizen  to  be.  No  small  part  of  this  criticism 
must  fall  upon  industries  which  are  willing  to  exploit  children,  in 
some  sense  enticed  from  the  school  by  the  promise  of  a  paltry 
wage,  and  upon  the  inadequate  training  regulations  of  the  govern- 
ments of  our  school  districts. 

After  all,  the  school  is  the  self-conscious  expression  of  the  com- 
munity in  child  training ;  it  is  the  rational,  intentional  institution  ; 


BEARINGS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  53 

and  however  essential  the  activity  of  outside  agencies  are  in  direc- 
tion and  training  of  children,  the  school  should  be  the  central  and 
organizing  agency.  It  can,  however,  become  such  a  central  and  or- 
ganizing agency  only  as  it  abandons  its  medieval  position  of  giving 
a  body  of  doctrines  and  techniques  which  find  their  justification 
in  themselves  rather  than  in  their  value  in  conduct,  at  home,  in 
the  neighborhood,  and  in  the  vocations. 

Such  a  testing  of  the  doctrine  and  technique  of  school  training 
is  not  to  be  taken  in  any  narrow  sense.  In  the  first  place,  it  is 
the  final  good  of  the  child  rather  than  his  immediate  wage  that 
must  be  considered  ;  in  the  second  place,  we  all  realize  that  many 
of  the  values  that  accrue  to  the  child  from  the  school  training  are 
intangible  and  can  be  stated  with  difficulty,  if  at  all,  in  terms  of 
his  success  in  a  trade  or  an  office.  What  I  am  pleading  for  is  the 
recognition  that  it  is  in  relation  to  his  vocation  that  all  the  child 
has  acquired  should  be  regarded,  even  if  some  of  the  acquirements 
are  intangible  and  cannot  be  weighed  in  the  coarser  scales  of  wage 
and  advancement.  In  a  word,  it  must  be  through  the  child's  vo- 
cation that  he  can  get  to  the  positions  in  which  these  very  intan- 
gible results  of  schooling  will  have  their  season  of  flowering  and 
fruiting.  Unless  a  child  can  get  into  life  he  cannot  have  it,  no 
matter  how  well  he  may  be  prepared  to  appreciate  much  that  is 
fine  therein.  The  school  may  not  concentrate  its  efforts  upon 
values  to  be  realized  later  unless  it  sees  doors  open  through  which 
the  child  can  reach  the  uplands  of  life.  It  is  the  whole  life  of  the 
child  that  the  school  must  envisage,  but  it  must  conceive  of  it  as 
growing  out  of  the  child's  first  beginnings  in  the  world  after  he 
leaves  school.  Unless  the  school  helps  the  child  effectively  into 
the  larger  fields,  it  is  in  vain  that  it  has  given  him  their  chart. 

Now  it  is  at  least  consonant  with  the  traditions  of  American 
schooling  to  assume  that  culture  and  training  form  a  whole,  and 
that  the  higher  values  grow  out  of  the  immediate  necessities ;  to 
assume  that  in  the  immediate  experience  of  the  child  there  are 
found  the  opportunities  for  development  of  what  the  school  has 
to  inculcate.  It  is  not  only  possible,  but  pedagogically  correct,  to 
give  a  child  the  history  of  his  country  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
industries  into  which  he  must  enter ;  to  follow  the  line  of  the 


54  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

child's  vocational  interest  in  organizing  his  course  of  study,  with 
the  full  recognition  that  such  a  vocation  has  its  essential  relations 
to  all  that  the  child  has  to  learn.  Even  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  subject  matter  of  the  curriculum,  the  school  can  profit  by  mak- 
ing its  standpoint  vocational  guidance,  the  guidance  of  the  child 
becoming  the  guiding  principle  of  the  curriculum.  The  illustration 
has  been  taken  largely  from  the  case  of  the  children  who  go  direct 
from  an  incomplete  elementary  schooling  into  the  shop,  factory, 
or  office  ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  same  principle  holds, 
whatsoever  the  vocation  of  the  child  may  be,  and  it  is  even  true 
that  the  child  may  well  profit  in  his  elementary  and  perhaps  sec- 
ondary training  if  he  looks  toward  some  vocation  whose  outline  he 
can  discern  better  than  the  profession  which  he  may  later  follow. 
Trade  training  when  adequately  given  is  sound  education  even  for 
those  who  will  not  be  tradesmen. 

But  it  is  the  still  broader  outlook  that  I  would  insist  upon  for 
the  school.  Not  only  should  the  school  conceive  of  its  subject 
matter  and  method  from  the  standpoint  of  the  success  and  failure 
of  the  children  when  they  leave  school ;  it  should  be  humanized 
and  socialized  more  completely  by  keeping  the  human  fortunes  of 
its  children  perpetually  before  it,  and  by  continually  questioning 
its  own  material  and  method  when  its  graduates  stumble  and  fall 
before  the  obstacles  that  confront  them  when  they  leave  the  school- 
house.  It  should  be  so  organically  related  to  the  other  agencies 
that  regard  the  success  and  failure  of  children  —  the  home,  the 
social  workers,  the  employment  agencies,  the  employers  and  their 
various  plants,  the  higher  schools  into  which  some  of  its  pupils 
will  pass,  and  the  whole  community  into  which  as  citizens  it  will 
send  its  students  —  that  the  contacts  which  vocational  guidance 
brings  with  it  will  be  largely  sought  and  intelligently  used  for 
purposes  of  criticism  and  interpretation. 

To  sum  up,  vocational  guidance  means  testing  the  whole  train- 
ing given  the  child,  both  within  and  without  the  school.  It  is  the 
point  of  contact  with  the  outer  world  from  which  to  criticize  both 
this  training  and  the  occupations  into  which  society  admits  the 
children  whom  it  has  partly  educated.  The  healthful  relation  of 
the  school  to  the  community,  and  especially  to  the  other  agencies 


BEARINGS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  55 

that  train  our  children,  depends  upon  the  school  making  the  stand- 
point of  vocational  guidance  a  dominant  one  in  its  whole  organization. 

In  accepting  this  standpoint  the  school  will  abandon  the  medieval 
position  and  will  come  into  full  human  relationship  with  homes, 
neighborhoods,  occupations,  and  all  the  agencies  that  are  bound 
up  with  the  development  of  the  rising  generation.  In  accepting 
the  challenge  of  formulating  the  education  of  the  child  on  terms 
of  the  uses  to  which  he  will  put  it,  the  school  should  abandon 
nothing  of  the  higher  values  of  which  it  conceives  itself  to  be  the 
carrier,  but  should  recognize  its  task  to  be  the  statement  of  these 
values  in  terms  of  the  child's  own  experience. 

In  vocational  guidance  the  school  finds  its  supreme  task  as  the 
conscious  educational  institution  of  a  democracy. 

In  endeavoring  to  formulate  the  larger  meaning  of  vocational 
guidance  for  the  school,  I  seem  to  have  gone  away  from  the  im- 
mediate concrete  and  often  meager  undertaking  of  the  vocational 
guidance  with  which  we  are  familiar  ;  but  acquaintance  with  inten- 
sive studies  of  the  schooling  and  occupations  of  children  in  a 
poverty-stricken  industrial  section  of  Chicago  has  convinced  me 
that  the  task  of  following  up  the  boys  and  girls  who,  with  incom- 
plete schooling,  search  after  wretched  jobs,  brings  out  with  terrible 
force  the  necessity  of  regarding  and  judging  our  whole  process  of 
child  training  from  the  standpoint  of  the  vocations  into  which  we 
are  unconsciously  driving  them.  The  children  are  worth  so  much 
more  than  the  occupations  to  which  we  dedicate  very  many  of  them, 
and,  after  all,  the  school  is  the  one  institution  which  can  express 
this  value  of  the  children  in  terms  of  the  preparation  it  gives  them 
for  life  ;  hence  it  can  speak  with  authority  to  society  as  to  the  oc- 
cupations into  which  the  children  may  enter.  It  is  at  this  meeting 
point  of  training  and  occupation  that  the  school  can  criticize  its 
own  achievements  and  at  the  same  time  the  life  into  which  the 
children  are  to  enter.  It  seems  to  me  of  supreme  importance  both 
to  the  children's  training  and  to  their  vocations  that  both  should 
be  formulated  in  terms  of  vocational  guidance. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  FACTOR  IN  EDUCATION 

BY  ERNEST  N.  HENDERSON,  PROFESSOR  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION, 
ADELPHI  COLLEGE,  BROOKLYN,  NEW  YORK 

(From  the  Report  of  Committee  on  the  Place  of  Industries  in  Public  Education 
to  the  National  Council  of  Education,  July,  1910) 

According  to  the  plan  of  the  committee  the  purpose  of  this 
chapter  is  to  discuss  "  the  psychological  and  social  need  for  con- 
structive handwork  and  for  industries  as  a  '  subject '  in  school." 
The  aim  will  be  to  analyze  and  to  state  as  compactly  as  possible 
the  various  phases  of  this  need  as  it  displays  itself  in  the  child 
growing  up  through  the  school  to  maturity.  The  discussion  will 
assume  the  results  of  preceding  reports  as  to  the  importance  of 
industries  as  a  cultural  force  and  will  leave  for  later  discussion 
the  history  of  the  theory  of  industrial  education. 

It  seems,  however,  almost  necessary  to  preface  a  discussion  of 
the  psychological  need  for  any  subject  in  the  school  by  a  compari- 
son of  the  part  psychology  has  in  the  past  played  in  the  determina- 
tion of  the  work  of  education  with  the  function  assigned  to  it  by 
schoolmen  to-day.  The  great  educational  reformers,  Rousseau, 
Pestalozzi,  Herbart,  and  Froebel  were  convinced  that  the  funda- 
mental need  in  education  was  that  it  should  be  based  on  a  sound 
psychology.  So  thoroughly  were  they  possessed  with  this  point  of 
view  that  they  looked  to  psychology  to  determine  not  only  the 
method  but  also  the  aim  of  education.  The  problem  of  the  school- 
master they  conceived  to  be  a  development  of  that  which  is  poten- 
tial within  the  child.  In  this  attitude  they  were  protesting  against 
an  endeavor  to  enforce  upon  him  a  number  of  disagreeable  tasks 
more  or  less  remotely  connected  with  the  business  of  life.  Even 
Herbart,  with  his  emphasis  on  the  importance  of  the  external  proc- 
ess of  instruction,  agreed  that  the  aim  of  education  is  "  the  har- 
monious development  of  all  the  powers,"  or,  according  to  his 

56 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  FACTOR  IN  EDUCATION  57 

phraseology,  the  development  of  "  many-sided  interest."  Educa- 
tion according  to  this  view  aims  at  personal  culture,  at  realizing 
the  self,  at  bringing  to  light  the  possibilities  that  God  implanted 
in  the  child ;  these  are  all  methods  of  stating  the  purpose  of  edu- 
cation which  leave  to  the  psychologist  the  problem  of  determining 
its  specific  character.  For  who  but  he  whose  study  concerns  the 
nature  of  the  mind  can  be  expected  to  know  its  potentialities  ? 

The  theory  that  psychology  should  determine  not  only  the  method 
but  also  the  aim  of  instruction  possessed  the  minds  of  the  earlier 
advocates  of  manual .  training  in  the  United  States.  Among  the 
important  characteristics  of  the  child  is  the  fact  that  he  has  a  body 
and  is  capable  of  doing  an  enormous  number  of  things  with  it. 
Moreover,  he  is  intensely  interested  in  doing  many  of  these  things. 
For  a  long  time  the  physical  activities  are  rather  more  in  evidence 
than  the  mental  ones,  and  all  of  the  instincts  point  toward  them. 
Soon  the  instinct  of  constructiveness  appears,  fashioning  the  form 
of  many  games.  The  teacher,  alert  to  the  potentialities  of  the  child, 
marks  the  power  and  the  instinct  to  use  the  hand,  and  cultivates 
it  to  insure  that  perfectly  developed  man  toward  whom  his  task  is 
conceived  to  direct  itself. 

With  the  progress  of  time  the  ideal  of  personal  culture  has  been 
largely  modified  or  replaced  by  that  of  efficiency.  According  to 
this  aim  education  concerns  itself  with  preparing  for  life  rather 
than  in  cultivating  all  the  powers  of  the  child.  The  study  of  what 
man  has  to  do,  particularly  the  study  of  the  social  organization  into 
which  he  must  fit,  has  come  to  be  conceived  as  the  proper  method 
of  determining  the  purpose  of  education.  On  this  basis  the  mere 
fact  that  a  child  possesses  a  capacity  is  no  reason  that  the  school 
should  aim  to  develop  it.  On  the  contrary,  many  capacities,  since 
they  bear  no  relation  to  social  life  as  at  present  constituted,  may 
well  be  suffered  to  atrophy.  If  there  is  to  be  education  in  con- 
structive work,  it  must  be  because  there  is  a  social  rather  than  a 
psychological  need  for  it. 

Such  a  need  is  not,  however,  far  to  seek.  The  growth  of  in- 
dustry in  modern  times  has  been  such  as  to  place  it  at  the  very 
front  among  the  interests  of  communities  and  of  nations.  Science, 
for  many  ages  merely  the  pursuit  of  a  learned  leisure,  has  been 


58  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

harnessed  and  put  to  work.  It  has  concerned  itself  with  the  tasks 
intrusted  to  the  servile  classes.  It  has  relieved  their  labor  of  some 
of  its  severest  strains,  has  elevated  its  character,  making  it  more 
intelligent,  and  has  created  the  need  of  a  broader  intellectual  train- 
ing as  a  preparation  for  nearly  all  the  vocations  than  was  required 
a  century  ago.  If  education  is  to  prepare  for  life,  it  must  begin  by 
preparing  to  make  a  livelihood,  and  the  vocations  of  the  vast  major- 
ity of  those  whom  a  democratic  society  would  educate  involve  forms 
of  handwork  and  industry  in  which  the  school  can  give  an  exten- 
sive training.  Such  training  is  becoming  increasingly  necessary 
because  of  changes  in  the  industrial  life  that  tend  to  check  or  to 
destroy  the  apprentice  system,  and  because  this  life  is  continually 
becoming  more  complicated  and  difficult  to  understand  without 
specially  directed  study.  Thus  the  school  is  being  forced  to  take 
up  vocational  training  in  a  great  variety  of  occupations  hitherto 
prepared  for  adequately  in  other  ways,  for  the  negative  reason  that 
the  other  ways  are  disappearing  and  the  positive  one  that  it  alone 
is  capable  of  furnishing  a  training  suited  to  modern  needs. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  from  the  standpoint  of  aiming  to 
prepare  its  pupils  for  efficient  living  the  modern  school  is  more 
and  more  compelled  to  take  into  account  both  constructive  work 
and  the  study  of  industry  as  a  fundamentally  important  group  of 
subjects.  There  is  a  social  need  for  such  work.  But  in  the  endeavor 
to  fit  it  into  the  course  of  study  difficulties  arise.  Since  the  work 
is  commonly  recognized  as  vocational,  many  parents  see  no  need 
of  it  for  children  who  are  not  expected  to  pursue  the  callings  to 
which  it  is  supposed  to  lead.  This  is  especially  true  of  the  con- 
structive work,  the  survival  of  "  manual  training."  It  finds  diffi- 
culty in  making  its  way  into  the  earlier  part  of  the  curriculum, 
which  is  necessarily  the  same  for  all.  To  effect  this  entrance  and 
to  maintain  its  ground,  it  has  been  compelled  to  assume  generalized 
forms  that  seem  to  constitute  integral  parts  in  the  culture  of  every- 
one. Moreover,  it  has  been  tempted  to  defend  these  forms  not  on 
account  of  their  somewhat  remote  utility,  but  rather  on  the  ground 
of  the  older  psychological  arguments  of  discipline  and  all-round 
development.  If  these  arguments  are,  as  seems  inevitable,  to  be 
abandoned,  it  is  evident  that  the  elementary  school  must  find  and 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  FACTOR  IN  EDUCATION  59 

teach  that  phase  of  industrial  life  that  is  suited  to  children  and 
useful  for  all,  and  cease  to  rely  on  the  cultivation  through  manual 
training  of  such  general  powers  as  accuracy,  moral  rectitude,  co- 
ordination of  eye  and  brain  and  hand,  etc. 

Many  considerations  conspire  to  make  wise  the  postponement  of 
the  more  purely  vocational  part  of  constructive  work  and  the  study 
of  industry  until  at  least  the  dawn  of  adolescence.  It  is  specialized 
work,  and  to  introduce  such  training  early  seems  bad  for  at  least 
three  reasons:  (i)  It  encourages  differentiation  before  the  child 
has  revealed  himself  to  others  or  has  discovered  his  own  tastes  and 
aptitudes.  (2)  It  initiates  specialization  before  a  child  has  obtained 
the  general  foundations  of  his  culture,  and  while  he  is  still  imma- 
ture. Many  declare  that  this  leads  to  prematuration  and  to  arrested 
development.  (3)  It  tries  to  teach  children  what  can  be  learned 
effectively  only  by  older  persons  and  especially  under  the  pressure 
of  practical  need.  This  results  in  a  waste  of  time. 

The  problem  of  constructive  work  and  of  the  study  of  industry 
has  thus  very  quickly  resolved  itself  into  one  of  determining  on 
the  one  hand  the  elements  of  general  culture  and  on  the  other 
those  of  specialization  that  these  subjects  involve.  This  analysis 
completed,  the  two  factors  can  be  assigned  to  different  parts  of 
the  school  program.  The  special  training  can  well  be  postponed 
until  the  work  of  the  elementary  school  has  been  finished.  The 
general  culture  would  need  to  be  properly  correlated  with  the  age 
of  the  pupils  and  the  general  arrangement  of  studies  in  the  school. 
Herein  the  issue  comes  to  involve  questions  of  the  psychological 
needs  of  childhood. 

Before  taking  up  these  questions,  however,  let  us  note  a  little 
more  carefully  the  nature  of  that  general  social  need  at  the  behest 
of  which  the  studies  in  question  should  be  introduced  into  the  ele- 
mentary school.  It  is  evident  that  their  general  utility  is  not  iden- 
tical with  what  it  has  been  in  the  past.  With  the  development  of 
industry  into  more  and  more  elaborate  organizations  of  highly 
specialized  activities,  the  all-round  manual  skill  so  important  in 
both  men  and  women  a  generation  ago  is  ceasing  to  be  an  espe- 
cially valuable  source  of  efficiency.  On  the  other  hand,  economic 
interdependence  is  becoming  greater,  and  it  is  growing  increasingly 


6o  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

important  for  each  to  know  many  things  in  order  to  keep  his 
activities  socially  and  vocationally  in  efficient  cooperation  with  the 
activities  of  others  in  different  walks  of  life.  The  substitution  of 
economic  interdependence  for  economic  independence  has  made 
it  necessary  for  each,  if  he  be  not  to  descend  into  the  position  of 
a  mere  tool  of  the  social  machine  to  be  taken  up  or  laid  aside  at 
the  will  of  those  who  use  him,  to  understand  the  relation  of  his 
vocation  to  others  well  enough  to  exert  a  controlling  influence  in 
reference  to  its  status  and  its  development.  He  must  be  able  not 
only  to  readjust  himself  to  changes  in  his  vocation,  but  to  assist 
in  the  work  of  readjusting  his  vocation  to  the  varying  conditions 
of  community  life.  To  do  this  he  needs  a  general  knowledge 
of  many  vocations.  The  world  of  industry  in  general  becomes  of 
importance  to  him  as  well  as  his  own  specialty. 

It  is  to  the  task  of  laying  the  foundations  for  a  general  knowledge 
of  industrial  life  that  the  elementary  school  must  address  itself.  In 
this  work  mere  manual  training  becomes  subordinated  to  the  study 
of  industry,  as  a  method  rather  than  an  aim  of  instruction.  The 
group  of  subjects  becomes  an  introduction  to  a  fundamental  phase 
of  economic  life  and  serves  a  utility  quite  as  definite  as  that  of 
instruction  in  the  three  R's  or  in  geography.  Culture  having  this 
general  aim  may  well  continue  after  the  study  of  specific  vocations 
has  begun.  The  more  effectively  it  is  mastered  the  more  surely, 
we  may  suppose,  will  the  trained  man  be  master  of  his  vocation 
rather  than  its  slave. 

Whatever  may  be  the  factors  in  industrial  intelligence,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  one  is  a  knowledge  of  the  general  facts  of  economic  and 
industrial  life  such  as  enables  the  individual  to  see  clearly  the 
relation  of  his  own  vocation  thereto.  Upon  such  knowledge  is 
founded  sound  judgment  as  to  the  rights  and  duties  of  each  craft 
as  well  as  of  its  possibilities  and  necessities. 

We  turn  now  to  the  psychological  problem  —  the  problem  of 
adjusting  constructive  work  and  the  study  of  industry  to  the  nature 
of  the  child.  It  may  be  said  of  both,  and  especially  of  the  former, 
that  nature  has  left  the  schoolmaster  little  to  do.  Children  inherit 
so  great  an  interest  in  such  activity  that  it,  so  far  from  needing  aid 
in  order  to  be  made  enjoyable,  constitutes  one  of  the  most  effective 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  FACTOR  IN  EDUCATION          61 

means  of  arousing  interest  in  any  subject  that  can  be  taught 
through  its  assistance.  Those  educational  reformers  who  have 
striven  to  reorganize  education,  making  it  more  interesting  and 
more  in  accord  with  the  nature  of  the  child,  have  usually  been 
pronounced  advocates  of  constructive  work.  We  may  distinguish 
between  two  general  uses  for  which  it  has  been  employed  :  (a)  to 
give  motive  for  school  work  otherwise  meaningless  and  uninterest- 
ing, and  (b]  to  render  more  positive  and  lasting  the  results  of 
instruction. 

As  a  means  of  motivation  constructive  work  possesses  the  fol- 
lowing advantages  :  (i)  It  appeals  to  the  love  of  activity,  especially 
physical  activity  so  prominent  in  children.  To  younger  children 
the  mere  making  of  things  seems  worth  while  apart  from  any  uses 
to  which  the  product  may  be  put.  (2)  It  appeals  to  the  primitive 
interest  in  the  concrete,  that  which  represents  processes  and  results 
easily  apprehended  by  both  sight  and  touch  and  the  muscular  sense. 
In  such  material  young  children  are  absorbed,  and  it  is  astonishing 
how  little  general  meaning  or  value  is  necessary  to  insure  their 
interest,  provided  the  material  with  which  they  are  working  be  of 
this  tangible  character.  (3)  Constructive  work  connects  itself  with 
occupations  and  products  the  utility  of  which  is  seen  illustrated  in 
the  everyday  life  about  the  child.  Indeed,  they  are  among  the 
first  utilities  to  be  grasped  by  the  child's  mind. 

When  we  turn  to  the  value  of  constructive  work  as  a  means  of 
strengthening  the  results  of  instruction  we  distinguish  two  funda- 
mental advantages:  (i)  It  furnishes  one  of  the  easiest  and  most 
effective  ways  of  applying  the  principle  that  learning  should,  or, 
as  the  "functional "  psychology  puts  it,  must  be  by  doing.  (2)  It 
teaches  through  the  application  of  principles  to  a  sort  of  practice 
more  nearly  similar  to  that  of  the  life  situations  in  which  these  prin- 
ciples are  expected  to  function  than  is  that  of  much  of  the  school. 

The  newer  psychology  takes  the  ground  that  we  do  not  attend, 
do  not  discriminate,  and  so  are  not  conscious,  except  when  this  is 
necessary  to  bring  about  readjustment  between  reactions  and 
stimuli.  Learning  is  always  connected  with  the  reorganization  of 
our  modes  of  behavior.  Apart  from  constructive  work  the  school 
presents  only  one  form  of  physical  activity  of  great  importance. 


62  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

This  is  that  of  language,  either  oral  or  written,  and  the  great  aim 
of  such  activity  is  to  come  into  adjustment  with  certain  standard 
words,  notably  those  of  the  teacher.  Now  while  such  activity  must 
always  remain  one  of  the  most  fruitful  occasions  for  learning,  in- 
asmuch as  nothing  can  vie  with  the  social  situation  in  offering 
emergencies  for  readjustment,  it  is  exceedingly  valuable  not  to  be 
limited  in  school  doing  and  learning  to  this  sort  of  thing.  The 
addition  of  the  endeavor  to  manipulate  materials  supplies  a  char- 
acteristically different  sort  of  emergency.  In  adjusting  himself  to 
other  minds  the  child  is  dealing  with  persons  who  are  continually 
by  their  own  efforts  furthering  or  hindering  his  endeavors.  In 
either  event  the  condition  of  dependence  is  emphasized.  The 
child  is  led  to  consider  success  or  failure  to  be  a  matter  of  the 
point  of  view  of  others  ;  and  this  point  of  view  may  be,  and  all  too 
frequently  is,  dependent  upon  circumstance  and  mood,  inaccurate, 
uncertain,  transitory,  unjust,  or  absurdly  compliant  and  easy  rather 
than  fixed,  true,  and  inevitable.  The  methods  of  dealing  with 
minds  vary  from  cajolery  and  domineering  to  persuasion  and  the 
appeal  to  the  sense  of  right.  In  any  case  they  differ  greatly  from 
the  dealing  with  mere  physical  materials,  where  there  is  one  law, 
the  mastery  of  which  is  the  only  method  of  securing  results,  and 
where  the  child  can  have  no  thought  except  that  of  simple  direct 
control.  It  is  an  unquestionable  addition  to  the  resources  of  the 
child  that  he  has  accustomed  himself  to  deal  intelligently  with 
physical  materials  as  well  as  with  human  minds. 

Moreover  much  that  is  learned  in  the  school  is  intended  to  be 
applied  not  in  the  control  of  men  but  in  the  manipulation  of 
material.  In  that  event  constructive  work  in  the  school  offers  the 
only  method  by  which  the  principles  can  there  be  applied  as  they 
would  be  in  life.  That  they  should  get  this  sort  of  school  applica- 
tion is  fundamentally  important.  Facts  learned  in  order  to  be 
recited  are,  by  a  simple  principle  of  recall,  not  apt  to  be  remem- 
bered where  the  circumstances  and  the  emergencies  are  so  vastly 
different  as  in  the  case  of  school  questioning  on  the  one  hand  and 
a  workshop  on  the  other.  The  more  nearly  the  school  environ- 
ment corresponds  to  that  of  life  in  general,  the  more  likely  it  is 
that  the  ideas  learned  in  the  former  will  be'  applied  in  the  latter. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  FACTOR  IN  EDUCATION          63 

The  identity  of  principle  is  not  sufficient  with  most  minds  to  over- 
come the  effect  of  diversity  in  all  other  associations,  and  the  mind 
recalls  many  things,  but  not  that  far-away  bit  of  school  learning 
which  is  the  one  thing  useful.  It  may  therefore  safely  be  said  that 
whatever  is  to  be  applied  to  problems  in  construction  should  be 
learned  wherever  possible  in  connection  with  such  problems. 

Very  much  the  same  analysis  that  has  been  made  of  the  psycho- 
logical need  for  constructive  work  in  the  school  applies  to  the  study 
of  industry.  In  fact  it  deals  with  that  phase  of  life  to  aid  in  the 
study  of  which  constructive  work  finds  its  principal  use.  Connect- 
ing itself  with  interest  in  and  imitation  of  the  simpler  forms  of 
adult  life,  it  leads  gradually  to  a  desire  to  participate  in  the  work 
of  the  world.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  constructive  work  and  the 
study  of  industry  in  the  elementary  school  will  ultimately  be  of 
such  a  character  that  when  the  pupil  reaches  the  age  at  which  the 
activities  of  adult  life  make  their  appeal,  he  will  be  able  to  make 
a  wise  choice  in  reference  to  them  and  be  already  advanced  in  an 
appreciable  measure  toward  the  goal  of  his  special  vocation. 

It  is  especially  in  connection  with  relating  school  work  to  the 
realities  of  life  that  the  study  of  industry  becomes  important.  The 
public  in  a  democratic  and  commercial  and  industrial  community 
are  apt  to  find  reality  rather  more  in  such  work  than  in  science 
and  art,  literature  and  philosophy.  The  children  of  such  a  public 
are  prone  to  discover  in  the  study  of  industry  something  that  con- 
nects the  systematic,  and  especially  the  formal,  work  of  the  school 
with  the  real  problems  of  life.  Under  these  conditions  the  school 
finds  this  study  a  means  of  putting  motive  into  many  contributory 
studies  and  of  securing  such  a  setting  for  its  teaching  as  will  make 
likely  its  application  at  least  to  the  utilitarian  pursuits  of  life. 

The  problem  of  motive  becomes  especially  difficult  in  the  later 
years  of  the  elementary  school.  Children  at  this  time  pass,  so  far 
as  regards  their  outlook  upon  life,  into  a  distinctly  different  phase 
of  development.  We  can  bring  this  out  by  describing  the  earlier 
phases.  The  young  child  is  a  creature  of  impulse  and  of  imagina- 
tion, absorbed  in  doing  or  thinking  that  which  is  immediately  sug- 
gested to  him.  Reflection  is  gradually  forced  upon  him.  The 
period  from  eight  to  twelve  is  a  critical  age,  an  age  of  rivalry  in 


64  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

games,  of  the  felt  presence  of  social  criticism  and  coercion  in  refer- 
ence to  all  the  physical  and  mental  activities  that  the  child  puts 
forth.  Under  this  pressure  he  becomes  reflective.  He  subjects 
imagination  to  standards,  the  standards  of  social  acceptability,  of 
truth,  of  propriety.  Such  standards  vary  with  individuals  and  social 
groups.  The  teacher  does  not  always  agree  with  the  parents,  much 
less  with  the  man  on  the  street.  Among  the  children  groups  arise 
on  the  basis  of  difference  in  ideals.  Later  on  the  adolescent  dis- 
covers that  among  these  warring  views  of  life  he  must  choose  one 
for  himself  to  be  his  own.  He  arrives  at  the  age  of  independence 
and  becomes  himself  the  critic,  declaring  his  freedom  from  coercion. 

It  is  at  this  age  that  the  rate  of  elimination  of  pupils  from  school 
becomes  portentous.  The  reasons  that  cause  children  to  leave 
school  are  very  numerous,  but  unquestionably  a  very  large  propor- 
tion, at  least  a  majority,  give  up  because  they  cannot  feel  that  it 
will  repay  the  sacrifice  of  effort  or  expense  or  both  that  it  involves. 
Other  reasons  are  for  the  most  part  contributory.  This  one  is 
fundamental.  There  are  two  classes  of  children  to  whom  school 
work  does  not  seem  worth  while.  One  of  these  consists  of  pupils 
who  can  and  do  get  on  well  in  the  school  but  find  the  activities  on 
the  outside  more  interesting  and  profitable.  The  other  is  composed 
of  pupils  who  do  not  prosper  in  the  school.  Such  children  naturally 
grow  discontented.  No  one  can  be  expected  to  regard  as  worth 
while  for  him  that  which  he  is  incapable  of  doing.  Moreover,  in 
such  a»  competitive  atmosphere  as  a  school  merely  to  pass  means 
practically  to  fail. 

Now  it  is  evident  that  just  as  constructive  work  may  offer  the 
motives  of  activity  and  the  making  of  concrete  things  to  younger 
children,  so  to  older  ones  it,  especially  when  combined  with  a  study 
of  industry,  will  seem  worth  while  to  many  of  both  these  two 
classes  of  the  ordinarily  eliminated.  For  those  who  fail  in  the 
older  studies  of  the  school,  the  constructive  work  may  offer  a  field 
for  success.  For  both  classes  it  should  constitute  the  main  part  of 
the  later  school  program.  As  an  integral  part  of  the  preparation 
for  life,  it  deserves  a  place  proportionate  to  the  number  of  those 
who  need  such  preparation  and  the  amount  of  such  preparation  it 
is  possible  and  desirable  to  give. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  FACTOR  IN  EDUCATION          6i 

We  have  reached  again,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  study  of  th ; 
developing  nature  of  the  child,  the  issue  of  specialized  vocational 
training.  It  is  evident  that  the  general  training  of  the  earlier  years 
of  the  elementary  school  should  be  what  is  deemed  necessary  to 
all  and  what  introduces  those  who  are  to  specialize  in  some  form 
of  industry  to  their  work  of  specific  preparation.  We  have  not, 
however,  as  yet  considered  sufficiently  the  problem  of  the  initial 
steps  in  differentiation  or  specialization.  This  problem  is  in  our 
democratic  system  one  among  the  most  difficult  and  important 
that  we  face.  It  is  a  question  whether  the  problem  of  determining 
what  the  vocation  of  the  man  shall  be  is  not  more  difficult  and  ex- 
acting than  that  of  preparing  him  for  what  has  been  chosen.  The 
European  systems  of  education,  which  have  not  been  burdened  to 
such  an  extent  as  our  own  with  the  ideals  of  a  democracy,  have 
found  it  easy  to  ingraft  vocational  instruction  upon  an  elementary 
system  intended  only  for  those  destined  by  birth  to  some  form  of 
industry.  In  our  boasted  continuous  ladder  of  schools,  where  the 
elementary  school  leads  into  the  high  school  and  the  high  school 
into  the  college,  the  introduction  of  special  training  in  industry 
has  not  been  so  simple.  It  means  differentiation.  It  has  seemed 
like  cutting  off  from  the  children  who  took  it  the  opportunity  for 
such  careers  as  were  limited  largely  to  those  who  had  completed 
the  higher  course.  We  have  felt  that  education  shall  give  to  all  an 
equal  chance  to  attain  any  distinction  in  life.  Hence  we  have  clung 
to  a  system  associated  with  the  training  of  leaders,  even  though 
such  a  system  may  be  poorly  enough  adapted  to  the  education  of 
anyone  else. 

It  is  likely  that  we  shall  find  our  way  out  through  a  change  in 
our  conception  of  leadership  on  the  one  hand  and  a  discovery  that 
our  time-honored  method  of  training  any  sort  of  a  leader  needs 
extensive  modification,  if  not  revolution,  on  the  other.  It  is  not, 
however,  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  discuss  these  changes.  We 
may  confine  ourselves  to  the  crying  need  for  a  system  of  education 
that  shall  provide  training  adequate,  in  the  first  place,  to  enable  a 
fairly  intelligent  choice  of  a  calling  to  be  made  and,  in  the  second 
place,  to  prepare  for  whatever  may  be  selected.  We  are  fully  alive 
to  the  need  for  the  second  of  these  advances.  It  is  doubtful  whether 


66  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

our  educational  leaders  have  been  in  general  adequately  impressed 
with  the  need  for  a  system  of  school  work  the  primary  purpose  of 
which  should  be  to  enable  the  pupil  to  find  himself,  and  the  teacher 
to  give  to  him  intelligent  advice  on  the  matter. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  development  of  the  child,  the  age 
at  which  this  process  of  experimentation  toward  a  calling  should 
be  definitely  initiated  corresponds  fairly  well  with  the  beginning  of 
the  seventh  school  year.  Its  external  symptom  is  the  high  rate  of 
elimination  from  school  at  that  time,  and  its  internal  sign  is  the 
unrest,  the  questioning  of  values,  the  beginnings  of  "  storm  and 
stress  "  that  characterize  the  commencement  of  the  age  of  inde- 
pendence, of  adolescence.  It  would  seem  that  at  this  time  the 
secondary  phase  of  education  should  begin. 

There  has  been  in  our  country  some  trouble  in  defining  just 
what  secondary  education  is.  The  demarcation  between  it  and  the 
elementary  school  on  the  one  hand  and  higher  education  on  the 
other  has  been  one  of  years  and  of  studies  rather  than  of  general 
function.  There  has  been  no  clear  reason  except  custom  and  a 
felt  convenience  for  having  secondary  education  begin  and  end 
where  it  does.  It  is  possible,  however,  to  distinguish  three  well- 
marked  functions  of  education,  which  might  be  assigned  to  ele- 
mentary, secondary,  and  higher  education,  respectively,  without 
much  destructive  readjustment  of  our  present  system.  Elementary 
education  concerns  the  essentials  and  the  fundamentals.  It  is  the 
education  that  precedes  any  attempt  at  differentiation.  With  the 
development  of  the  child  up  into  the  age-  where  such  differentia- 
tion becomes  necessary  an  epoch  of  experimentation  sets  in.  The 
main  purpose  of  the  education  of  this  period  should  be  to  afford 
an  adequate  basis  of  experience  for  the  choice  of  a  specialty  and 
to  guide  the  process  of  selection.  Such  education  we  may  call 
secondary.  When  once  it  has  been  determined  as  well  as  is  practi- 
cally possible  what  the  child  should  do,  the  time  for  higher  edu- 
cation, that  is,  for  the  special  preparation  for  a  vocation,  has 
appeared. 

On  this  plan  we  should  not  have  a  system  in  which,  while  ele- 
mentary education  is  supposed  to  be  for  all,  secondary  education 
is  only  for  a  few,  and  higher  education  for  the  very  few ;  but  each 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  FACTOR  IN  EDUCATION          67 

phase  of  the  work  would  find  representation  in  the  education  of 
all  or  most  pupils.  At  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  grade  the 
work  of  experimentation  might  well  begin.  A  large  number  of 
children  have  by  this  time  demonstrated  their  unfitness  for  what 
might  be  called  a  professional  career.  For  them  the  severer  studies, 
involving  the  power  of  mind  to  grasp  and  utilize  the  abstract  ideas 
and  processes  involved  in  mathematics,  science,  language,  etc.,  are 
not  profitable.  They  should  be  given  experimental  work  along  the 
line  of  industrial  training  supplemented  by  concrete  cultural  work 
in  literature,  civics,  geography,  and  science,  such  as  adapts  them 
for  the  duties  of  citizenship  and  social  life.  We  may  tentatively 
suggest  that  two  years  of  such  work  would  put  these  children  in 
the  position  of  making  an  intelligent  choice  of  a  vocational  school 
in  which  to  complete  their  education. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  school  year  those  whose  mental 
traits  make  it  desirable  might  enter  schools  where  the  older  type 
of  secondary  work  is  prominent.  But  we  might  expect  that  con- 
tinually new  revelations  will  be  made  in  regard  to  the  talents  and 
tastes  of  such  pupils,  and  that  little  by  little  those  who  are  unable 
to  do  the  work  that  leads  to  the  higher  professions  will  be  selected 
out  to  enter  vocational  schools  that  prepare  primarily  for  inter- 
mediate positions  in  industry,  commerce,  the  civil  service,  etc. 
The  period  of  secondary  education  would,  on  the  theory  proposed, 
extend  until  the  choice  of  a  vocation  has  been  made  on  the  basis 
of  sufficient  experience.  The  knowledge  necessary  to  make  such 
a  choice  is  of  necessity  more  extensive,  the  more  advanced  the 
vocation.  Properly  speaking,  the  secondary  school  would  include 
the  present  liberal  college  course. 

The  characteristic  feature  of  the  secondary  school  on  this  theory 
is  the  emphasis  upon  experimentation  and  selection.  In  such  a 
school  the  experimental  subject  would  be  especially  prominent. 
This  may  be  defined  as  a  subject  studied  primarily  for  the  sake  of 
finding  the  extent  of  its  appeal  to  the  powers  and  interests  of  the 
student.  Experimental  studies  therefore  should  not  be  elective  but 
prescribed,  for  their  function  is  to  compel,  as  it  were,  the  student 
to  explore  the  field  of  human  thought  and  endeavor  adequately 
before  he  is  permitted  to  settle  upon  his  peculiar  specialty. 


68  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

An  adequate  range  of  experimentation  would  involve  the  sec- 
ondary but  by  no  means  unimportant  gain  of  a  broad  outlook  upon 
life.  Thus  the  student  will  be  getting  his  liberal  culture  to  a  great 
extent  while  he  is  engaged  in  the  process  of  selecting  his  vocation. 
The  study  of  industry  and  constructive  wwk  would  thus  constitute 
factors  not  only  in  the  elementary  but  also  in  the  secondary  educa- 
tion of  every  student.  All  children  would  have  enough  of  them  to 
know  and  to  do  the  things  that  they  concern  in  so  far  as  they 
enter  into  the  life  of  all.  Every  student  should  have  enough  more 
such  study  to  enable  him,  no  matter  what  his  calling  may  be,  to 
understand  and  to  sympathize  and  cooperate  with  those  whose  life 
work  lies  in  these  fields.  The  process  of  differentiation  initiated 
by  the  completion  of  the  elementary  course  would  still  leave  to  all 
some  further  work  along  such  lines  both  for  experimentation  and 
culture.  We  may  assume  that  when  the  experimental  work  has 
been  completed  the  needs  of  culture  will  have  been  in  most  cases 
fairly  well  satisfied. 

The  current  usage  assigns  vocational  schools  of  the  trade-school 
or  technical-school  type  to  secondary  rather  than  to  higher  educa- 
tion, where  they  would  be  placed  according  to  the  classification 
just  suggested.  This  arises  historically  because  such  work  is  usu- 
ally taken  in  lieu  of  the  secondary  training  of  the  older  sort.  The 
classification  made  in  the  preceding  discussion  aims  to  provide  a 
basis  for  the  determination  of  the  character  and  function  of  con- 
structive work  and  the  study  of  industry  as  we  go  from  the  age  of 
elementary  education  on  into  that  of  experimentation  toward  a 
vocation  and  further  into  that  of  specialized  preparation  for  the 
one  selected. 


PROBLEMS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 
BY  SUPERINTENDENT  F.  E.  SPAULDING,  MINNEAPOLIS 

(An  Address  delivered  to  the  Department  of  Superintendence,  Cincinnati, 

Ohio,  1915) 

More  completely  than  any  other  single  movement,  vocational 
guidance  must  take  for  its  function  the  conservation  of  human 
resources.  This  movement  enters  this  limitless  field  of  effort,  not 
as  a  distinctly  new  agency ;  it  seeks  rather  to  differentiate  itself 
from  old  agencies  —  the  school,  the  home,  the  occupation  —  by 
clarifying,  coordinating,  and  rendering  more  effective  the  efforts 
of  these  agencies  whose  function  is  also  some  phase  of  human 
betterment. 

The  vocational-guidance  movement  seeks  the  cooperation  of 
these  numerous  other  agencies,  and  must  depend  for  its  efficiency 
largely  upon  securing  such  cooperation.  Out  of  the  problems  of 
these  other  agencies,  rather  than  de  novo,  the  vocational-guidance 
movement  is  formulating  its  problems  and  thus  defining  its  field. 
Merely  to  state  a  half  dozen  of  these  problems  as  they  seem  now 
to  be  taking  shape  —  with  no  attempt  to  suggest  their  solution 
farther  than  their  statement  may  suggest  it  —  is  all  that  the  limits 
of  this  paper  will  permit 

The  first  problem  of  vocational  guidance  seeking  to  conserve 
human  resources  is  to  know  the  existence  of  those  resources,  their 
extent  and  number,  and  to  gain  and  exercise  some  measure  of 
control  over  them.  Hence  the  vocational-guidance  department  of 
every  school  system  should  be  responsible  for  an  accurate  and 
always  up-to-date  census  of  all  the  children  and  youth  of  the 
community,  covering  the  ages  from  four  or  five  to  at  least  eighteen, 
better  twenty-one,  years.  Furthermore,  within  these  years,  the 
vocational-guidance  department  should  exercise  legal  control  over 
the  children  and  youth  of  the  community  —  first  respecting  their 

69 


/O  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

schooling,  later  respecting  their  employment,  or  combined  employ- 
ment and  schooling.  Hence  the  issuance  of  all  school-exemption 
and  employment  certificates  should  be  under  the  control  of  this 
department  and  should  be  so  systematized  that  the  department 
may  know  at  all  times,  and  control  in  accordance  with  law,  the 
whereabouts  and  employment  of  every  youth  of  the  community. 

The  second  great  problem  of  vocational  guidance  concerns 
types  of  schools  and  school  curricula.  While  the  vocational-guid- 
ance department  must  not  be  charged  with  the  full  responsibility 
of  determining  what  types  of  schools  shall  be  maintained,  what 
subjects  shall  be  taught,  in  a  given  community,  this  department 
must  render  invaluable  assistance  in  determining  these  matters. 
For  it  is  the  function  of  this  department  to  know  more  completely, 
more  extensively,  than  any  other  the  two  great  factors  which  must 
determine  the  scope  and  character  of  schools  and  programs  of 
study  —  on  the  one  hand,  the  children  and  youth  to  be  educated, 
their  capacities  and  needs,  and,  on  the  other,  the  needs  of  society, 
the  opportunities  that  society  affords  for  worthy  service. 

The  vocational-guidance  department  should  become  a  great 
repository  of  knowledge,  always  up  to  date  and  significant,  of  these 
two  great  factors  in  every  community  —  the  children  and  the  work 
of  the  community.  To  secure  this  knowledge  the  vocational-guid- 
ance department  should  stimulate  and  assist  the  study  of  children 
throughout  the  schools  —  every  teacher  should  have  a  part  in  this 
study,  which  should  materially  influence  her  attitude  and  work ;  at 
least  the  larger  generalizations  from  these  studies  in  the  schools 
should  be  formulated  and  made  available  for  quick  reference  in 
the  vocational-guidance  department.  Equally  should  this  depart- 
ment stimulate  and  take  part  in  frequent  industrial,  commercial, 
occupational,  surveys  of  the  community,  and  the  significant  findings 
of  such  surveys  should  be  always  available  in  intelligible  form  in 
the  office  of  the  department. 

But  no  vocational-guidance  department  should  serve  merely  as 
a  repository  of  such  knowledge  as  this.  Its  knowledge  should, 
indeed,  be  available  for  the  use  of  all  who  may  seek  it ;  but  the 
department  itself  must  be  at  least  one  of  the  prime  interpreters  of 
this  knowledge.  When  it  is  a  question  of  the  adjustment  and  the 


PROBLEMS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE      71 

constant  readjustment  of  schools  and  of  school  programs  to  the 
changing  needs  of  the  children  and  of  the  community,  it  may 
well  fall  to  the  vocational-guidance  department  to  take  the  initiative 
in  bringing  about  the  necessary  adjustments. 

One  important  feature  that  the  vocational-guidance  department 
must  help  to  introduce  in  some  effective  way  into  the  school 
program  of  every  community  is  a  study  of  the  rich  and  varied 
possibilities  of  service  that  not  only  the  local  community  but  the 
world  affords.  Such  studies  must  be  made  not  only  informing 
but  inspiring,  to  the  end  that  youth  may  not  merely  know  of  the 
existence  of  opportunities  for  service,  but  that  youthful  desire 
for  activity,  for  self-expression,  may  be  aroused  and  directed  into 
worthy  channels. 

Vocational  guidance  may  well  formulate  for  itself  a  third  problem, 
that  of  the  moral  effect  of  the  school  on  the  child.  I  refer  not 
especially  to  the  conscious  and  intentional  efforts  of  the  school  to 
train  the  character  as  well  as  the  intellect  —  most  schools  are 
fully  alive  to  the  importance  of  such  character  training  as  a  means 
of  vocational  preparation  ;  I  refer  rather  to  the  continuous,  unavoid- 
able, yet  rarely  appreciated  effect  of  the  conditions  imposed  upon 
the  pupil  through  the  organization,  administration,  and  conduct  of 
the  school  and  of  the  school  work.  The  character  effects  growing 
silently  and  inevitably  out  of  these  fundamental  conditions  are 
probably  more  important  than  those  resulting  from  conscious  and 
intentional  efforts  of  instructors.  They  are  of  all  kinds,  beneficial 
and  detrimental,  measured  in  terms  of  their  contribution  to  the 
realization  of  each  individual's  possibilities. 

Demanding  especial  attention  from  the  standpoint  of  vocational 
guidance  are  those  conditions  which  develop  in  a  large  percentage 
of  pupils  —  and  usually  in  the  very  ones  most  needing  vocational 
guidance  —  feelings  of  personal  unfitness  and  discouragement, 
habits  of  failure.  Those  who  know  industrial  conditions  to  which 
young  workers  are  subject,  rightly  deplore  the  prevalence  of  the 
blind-alley  job,  the  frequent  changes  from  one  job  to  another,  the 
repeated  failures  to  get  a  sure  footing  anywhere,  for  out  of  these 
conditions  graduate  that  most  pitiable  class  —  the  unemployables. 
It  is  high  time  for  us  to  realize  that  many  children  in  our  schools 


72  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

are  subject  to  like  conditions  —  blind-alley  studies,  repeated  and 
continuous  failure,  whose  character  effects  are  inevitably  the  same 
as  those  resulting  from  like  conditions  in  industry. 

The  vocational-guidance  movement  should  help  to  bring  from 
the  industrial  world  to  the  school  the  impressive  lesson  that  the 
conservation  of  human  resources,  in  general  and  in  the  individual, 
depends  upon  success  —  the  habit  of  success,  the  feeling  of 
self-confidence  that  grows  out  of  habitual  success.  No  one  wants 
to  fail  —  least  of  all  the  youth  whose  normal  condition  is  that  of 
confidence  and  hope ;  the  school  must  learn  to  adapt  its  work  and 
requirements  to  the  natural  desire  to  succeed,  so  that  the  entire 
school  life  of  every  pupil  may  be  a  series  of  successes,  to  the  end 
that  —  however  meager  the  intellectual  accomplishment  —  the 
habit  of  success  may  be  formed.  Without  this  fixed  habit  of  suc- 
cess any  young  person  is  poorly  prepared  to  face  the  discouraging 
conditions  so  prevalent  in  the  world  of  industry.  The  young 
person  entering  industry  with  the  habit  of  failure  developed  in 
school  has  already  made  several  grades  toward  graduation  into 
the  class  of  unemployables. 

The  fourth,  and  the  immediate,  problem  of  vocational  guidance 
is  the  individual.  Vocational  guidance  must  see  that  the  individual 
learns  to  appreciate  his  own  capacities  and  possibilities  ;  that  he 
informs  himself  concerning  the  opportunities  for  worthy  service 
that  the  world  offers  ;  that  he  prepares  himself  as  adequately  as  time 
and  conditions  permit  to  apply  his  powers  to  the  rendering  of  the 
highest  service  of  which  he  is,  or  may  become,  capable ;  that  he 
learns  to  concentrate  his  thought,  his  energy  and  ambition,  to  this 
end  of  large  and  worthy  service.  This  problem,  like  most  other 
problems  of  vocational  guidance,  is  not  one  for  the  vocational- 
guidance  expert  or  counselor  alone ;  it  is  a  problem  that  must 
enlist  the  thought  and  effort  of  everyone,  especially  teachers  and 
parents,  who  has  any  responsibility  for  the  development  and 
success  of  the  child  and  youth. 

The  fifth  problem  of  vocational  guidance  demands  extensive 
knowledge  of  opportunities  for  service,  especially  in  the  immediate 
community,  but  also  in  the  world  at  large.  Such  knowledge  must 
not  be  confined  to  industrial  and  commercial  occupations  —  service 


PROBLEMS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  73 

in  the  professions,  any  opportunity  for  worthy  service,  great  or 
small,  is  the  concern  of  vocational  guidance.  This  knowledge 
must  be  intimate  as  well  as  extensive.  It  must  embrace  essential 
conditions  of  each  distinct  occupation  —  the  general  character  of 
the  occupation  from  the  standpoint  of  social  and  civic  welfare ; 
the  extent  of  the  demand  for  service  in  that  occupation  ;  prepara- 
tion necessary ;  steps,  conditions,  and  limitations  of  progress ; 
health  and  other  conditions  with  their  effects  on  workers  ;  seasons 
and  hours  of  work  ;  wages  and  other  advantages.  In  short,  a  well- 
equipped  vocational-guidance  department  should  have  at  its  com- 
mand such  practical  analyses  of  every  important  organized  form  of 
service  as  were  worked  out  so  admirably  for  certain  typical  indus- 
tries in  the  Richmond  Survey.  Obviously,  the  gathering  of  such 
knowledge  and  keeping  it  always  up  to  date,  as  is  necessary,  is 
an  immense  undertaking.  Here,  again,  the  cooperation  of  many 
agencies  —  industrial,  commercial,  professional,  civic,  social,  and 
educational  —  must  be  enlisted. 

The  sixth  and  culminating  problem  of  vocational  guidance  has 
to  do  with  the  successful  transition  of  children  and  youth  from  the 
favorable  conditions  of  healthful  growth,  and  of  practical  education, 
which  the  schools  must  provide,  into  different  but  also  favorable 
conditions  for  continued  growth  that  occupations  must  be  brought 
to  afford.  I  state  this  final  problem  advisedly,  with  at  least  some 
realization  of  the  prodigious  responsibility  imposed  on  vocational 
guidance  —  the  responsibility  of  influencing  the  conditions  of 
industry  in  favor  of  human  welfare. 

To  accomplish  this  undertaking  in  any  considerable  measure  is 
unquestionably  beyond  the  unaided  power  of  any  vocational-guid- 
ance movement  that  is  likely  soon  to  develop.  But  fortunately 
many  organized  agencies,  public  and  private,  are  already  engaged 
in  this  same  undertaking.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  all  those  agencies 
whose  object  is  the  banishment  of  human  exploitation,  the  eleva- 
tion of  human  welfare  above  mere  industrial  and  commercial  profit 
—  those  agencies  that  are  already  doing  much  to  shorten  the  long 
hours,  to  improve  the  working  conditions,  and  to  increase  the  pay 
of  wage  earners.  It  is  the  function  and  the  unparalleled  oppor- 
tunity of  vocational  guidance  to  cooperate  with  all  such  agencies, 


74  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to  coordinate  their  efforts  and  to  concentrate  them  all  to  the 
fullest  conservation  of  human  resources. 

That  the  motives  of  vocational  guidance  may  be  above  question, 
this  movement  should  be  supported  at  public  expense  just  as  the 
public-school  system  is  supported.  Any  distinct  organization  for 
the  purpose  of  stimulating,  directing,  and  making  more  effective 
the  vocational-guidance  movement  should  be  a  part,  a  department, 
of  the  public-school  system.  The  ideal  of  vocational  guidance  is 
but  an  elevation  and  extension  of  the  educational  ideal  for  which 
the  school  exists.  Vocational  guidance  seeks  the  largest  realization 
of  the  possibilities  of  every  child  and  youth,  measured  in  terms  of 
worthy  service ;  vocational  guidance  seeks  this  not  through  the 
school  alone  but  through  the  upbuilding  influences  that  work  and 
life  beyond  the  school  ought  to  afford  every  human  being. 


THE  SCHOOLS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

BY  JOHN  V.  BRENNAN,  SUPERINTENDENT  OF  SCHOOLS, 
IRONWOOD,  MICHIGAN 

(From  The  American  Schoolmaster,  September,  1914) 

_A  vocational  guide  is  one  who  h.p1ps  other  ppnplp  tp  find 
selves.  Vocational  guidance  is  the  science  of  this  self-discovery. 
"STnce  the  inception  of  time  directive  forces  have  been  at  work, 
sometimes  under  one  name,  sometimes  under  another,  but  more 
frequently  under  no  name  at  all.  Sometimes  one  institution  was 
the  special  agency  through  which  they  worked,  sometimes  another, 
and  yet  again  no  particular  agency  was  visibly  active.  But  con- 
sciously or  otherwise  these  forces  have  been  at  work  molding  and 
shaping  human  lives  and  human  activities.  At  present  they  have 
come  into  definite  consciousness  in  the  United  States,  and  the 
schools  are  to  be  the  active  agents  in  their  administration. 

Just  now  there  is  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  scope 
and  direction  which  vocational  guidance  is  to  assume.  There  are 
those  who  contend  that  vocational  guidance  has  to  do  with  prob- 
lems purely  educational  and  social  rather  than  industrial,  and  that 
industry  is  only  a  portion  of  the  human  vocation ;  while  others 
contend  that  vocational  guidance  is  concerned  chiefly  with  in- 
dustry. Without  entering  into  a  discussion  of  the  merits  of  either 
case,  let  us  say  that  for  the  present,  at  least,  vocational  guidance  is 
to  be  specially  concerned  with  industry.  Vocational  guidance  of 
the  purely  educational  and  social  type  has  long  been  an  uncon- 
scious function  of  the  school.  The  industrial  type  of  guidance  is 
a  new  function  in  American  education,  and  because  it  is  new 
special  interest  will  center  round  it  until  its  problems  are  solved. 
While  we  recognize  that  vocational  guidance  has  to  do  with  self- 
discovery  and  direction  along  all  useful  lines  ;  that  education  must 
aim  higher  than  the  bread  line ;  that  the  utilitarian  view  is  but  one 

75 


76  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

phase  of  the  question ;  yet  any  scheme  of  education  which  disre- 
gards or  minimizes  the  problems  of  making  a  living  will  prove  a 
disappointment  and  must  ultimately  be  abandoned.  And  moreover, 
whatever  the  theory,  the  schools  in  the  United  States  will  have 
to  do  in  the  future  with  the  question  of  industrial  training  in  its 
relationship  to  adequate  food,  shelter,  and  clothing. 

Because  ours  is  a  democracy  in  which  every  person  may  aspire 
to  leadership,  and  because  the  rapid  increase  in  population  has 
made  leadership  more  difficult  to  attain,  the  demand  for  economic 
efficiency  has  made  vocational  guidance  one  of  the  leading  educa- 
tional questions  of  the  hour.  Did  we  live  in  India,  China,  or 
many  of  the  European  countries,  our  occupations  would  be  deter- 
mined for  us,  for  the  caste  system  would  force  us  to  follow  the 
occupations  of  our  fathers.  We  would  have  little  choice  in  the 
matter,  for  our  social  and  economic  status  would  be  predeter- 
mined to  such  an  extent  as  to  preclude  any  such  question  as  voca- 
tional guidance.  But  because  we  live  in  a  democracy,  no  function 
of  which  savors  of  caste  or  tradition,  and  because  economic  con- 
ditions compel  us  to  give  heed  to  efficiency,  we  have  the  problem 
of  vocational  guidance.  In  the  United  States  sons  do  not  pretend 
to  follow  the  occupations  of  their  fathers ;  in  fact,  in  many  in- 
stances the  occupation  of  the  father  acts  as  an  antidote  against  the 
son's  following  the  same  calling.  So  thoroughly  is  independence 
and  individualism  intrenched  and  interwoven  into  our  social  and 
governmental  fabric  that  the  son  feels  he  is  not  doing  his  duty  by 
himself,  his  community,  his  state,  or  his  nation,  unless  he  sets  up 
for  himself  an  individual  standard  of  life  distinct  and  apart  from 
that  set  up  by  his  father.  It  is  this  independence  of  spirit  which 
has  made  American  democracy  a  success. 

An  examination  of  the  leading  professions  of  the  city  of  Chicago, 
and  this  is  apparently  true  of  other  places,  reveals  the  fact  that 
70  per  cent  of  all  people  engaged  in  the  leading  professions  were 
born  and  reared  on  the  farm.  The  relationship  between  the  farm 
and  the  professions,  as  far  as  similarity  of  work  is  concerned,  is 
remote  if  not  almost  antipodal.  Only  in  point  of  perseverance 
and  application  is  there  any  connection  between  the  two.  From 
the  dairy,  the  hayfield,  the  ax,  and  the  plow  to  the  laboratory,  the 


THE  SCHOOLS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE       77 

bench,  the  counting  house,  and  the  engineering  department  is  a 
tremendous  vocational  distance.  In  fact,  so  great  is  the  distance 
that  little  if  any  of  the  technique  of  the  one  enters  into  the  tech- 
nique of  the  other.  The  only  relationship  possible  to  claim  is  that 
of  ability  to  work  and  to  continue  working.  As  far  as  any  con- 
scious effort  at  vocational  guidance  on  the  part  of  anyone  is  con- 
cerned, there  has  been  absolutely  none.  The  boy  on  the  farm  has 
worked  out  his  own  plans  and  purposes  practically  unaided.  The 
only  vocational  guide  with  which  he  has  been  familiar  is  the  ever- 
lasting job  which  has  met  him  at  every  turn.  He  has  tried  himself 
out  on  the  farm  job  until  he  has  seen  no  chance  for  emancipation 
from  manual  toil  and  no  adequate  remuneration  for  labor  expended 
unless  he  seeks  other  avenues  than  those  which  lead  to  the  farm. 
Hard  work  has  been  his  sole  vocational  guide,  and  with  this  as  a 
companion  he  has  been  compelled  to  sit  down  and  consider  seri- 
ously and  alone  the  question  of  what  he  shall  do  in  order  to  escape 
the  irksomeness  of  his  job.  He  has  been  compelled  to  choose  and 
plan  with  himself  and  for  himself,  and  then  to  be  responsible  to 
himself  for  the  chance  which  he  takes  and  the  results  which  follow. 
Perhaps  in  the  last  analysis  this  is  the  best  type  of  vocational  guid- 
ance, but  viewed  from  the  modern  meaning  of  the  term  there  is 
little  if  any  of  vocational  guidance  in  the  process. 

Not  until  the  United  States  has  become  more  densely  populated 
and  the  opportunity  for  individual  choice  and  leadership  more 
limited  has  the  question  of  vocational  guidance,  as  at  present 
understood,  come  into  the  foreground.  Efficiency  has  come  to  be 
talked  of.  This  is  simply  another  way  of  stating  that  more  people 
must  be  fed,  clothed,  and  housed  from  the  same  natural  resources 
or  the  human  race  must  go  hungry.  It  is  a  sound  economic  prin- 
ciple, applicable  alike  to  individuals  and  to  nations,  that  if  a  man 
consume  more  than  he  produce  someone  else  must  labor  to  make 
good  the  deficiency  or  want  and  ultimate  ruin  will  follow. 

Democracy  has  been  called  upon  to  feed  its  multitudes,  and 
while  the  fitting  and  refitting  of  the  human  product  according  to 
free  individual  choice  has  hitherto  meant  great  progress,  yet  it  is 
equally  true  that  such  process  has  been  wasteful  and  expensive. 
The  United  States  has  come  to  the  point  where  it  must  give  heed 


78  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to  the  elimination  of  waste  if  its  people  are  to  be  fed,  clothed,  and 
given  shelter.  We  have  set  squarely  before  us  the  problem  of  pre- 
serving individual  initiative  and  independence  while  at  the  same 
time  providing  competence  for  the  individual  and  for  the  multi- 
tude. Haphazard  choice,  with  its  failures,  waste,  and  turnings  back, 
can  no  longer  be  disregarded  or  allowed  to  go  unchecked.  Suita- 
bility of  occupation  is  the  basis  of  individual  and  national  success. 
How  to  secure  the  suitability  of  occupation  with  a  fair  degree  of 
certainty,  while  preserving  to  the  individual  the  right  and  the 
opportunity  to  aspire,  has  called  into  being  the  problem  of  voca- 
tional guidance. 

Nor  is  vocational  guidance  a  matter  for  the  male  population 
only.  There  are  at  present  in  the  United  States  about  2,500,000 
women  engaged  in  gainful  occupations  other  than  homemaking, 
and  while  ultimately  90  per  cent  of  all  women  are  destined  to 
become  homemakers,  yet  the  time  between  their  entrance  to  the 
industries  as  wage  earners  and  that  of  assuming  the  home  duties 
is  gradually  lengthening.  Nor  is  there  any  likelihood  that  the  wage- 
earning  period  will  not  continue  to  lengthen  or  the  number  of 
women  engaging  in  industrial  pursuits  continue  to  increase.  Eco- 
nomic efficiency  and  the  welfare  of  the  race  demand  that  women 
find  the  work  for  which  they  are  best  suited  during  this  special 
wage-earning  period,  hence  the  necessity  for  careful  vocational 
guidance  on  the  part  of  those  charged  with  the  responsibility. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  United  States,  the  nation 
has  consciously  set  itself  to  the  task  of  saving  time  and  material 
by  helping  the  individual  to  find  himself  occupationally  with  the 
least  possible  amount  of  refitting.  Moreover,  economic  pressure  is 
compelling  specialization.  The  ideal  toward  which  we  are  striving 
is  that  each  person  shall  become  socially  and  economically  com- 
petent without  waste  of  time  or  readjustment  of  occupation,  and 
while  this  ideal  will  never  be  reached,  yet  we  shall  constantly  come 
nearer  to  it.  The  United  States,  as  a  nation,  cannot  permit  the 
drain  resulting  from  haphazard  occupational  preparation  on  the 
part  of  its  citizenship  to  continue.  Economic  pressure  compels  this 
change.  Democracy  has  always  relied  upon  education  for  its  sup- 
port and  perpetuation,  and  as  education  is  primarily  the  function 


THE  SCHOOLS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE       79 

of  the  school  the  question  of  vocational  guidance  has  come  to  be 
a  school  problem.  Fundamentally,  the  problem  of  the  school  is 
the  problem  of  democracy.  How  to  preserve  to  the  individual  his 
right  to  aspire,  to  make  of  himself  what  he  will,  and  at  the  same 
time  find  himself  early,  accurately,  and  with  certainty,  is  the  prob- 
lem of  vocational  guidance.  Other  agencies  than  the  school  are 
concerned  with  this  question,  but  for  the  present  at  least,  and 
probably  for  a  considerable  time  to  come,  the  problem  will  be 
primarily  one  for  the  school. 

Democracy  to-day  has  called  upon  the  school  to  solve  one  of  the 
most  difficult  problems  of  all  times,  namely,  how  to  preserve  in- 
dividualism with  a  high  standard  of  community  efficiency  ;  in  other 
words,  how  to  keep  alive  in  the  breasts  of  the  youth  of  this  country 
the  ambition  to  venture,  to  experiment,  and  to  attain,  while  at  the 
same  time  directing  him  along  certain  definite  paths  best  suited  to 
his  aptitudes  and  talents.  The  youth  must  preserve  his  respect  for 
social  and  occupational  tradition,  while  at  the  same  time  adapting 
himself  to  the  newer  economic  conditions  which  compel  an  early 
choice  and  a  certainty  of  action.  Heretofore  our  economic  resources 
have  been  so  great  that  individuals  could  be  lavish  in  their  ventures 
and  try-outs  without  national  or  even  great  individual  discomfort. 
The  United  States  has  been  prodigal  in  its  material  resources  as 
well  as  in  its  men,  —  new  nations  are  always  such,  —  and  the  fact 
that  much  was  wasted  brought  little  or  no  discomfort  because  the 
source  of  supply  was  seemingly  unlimited..-  In  the  past,  if  a  boy 
chose  a  wrong  calling,  or  made  no  choice  at  all,  our  wealth  of 
opportunity  and  abundance  of  resources  furnished  him  a  fair  chance 
of  getting  a  living.  He  could  afford  to  transplant  himself  several 
times,  because  natural  conditions  were  so  favorable  that  trans- 
planting was  easy  and  rarely  completely  destructive.  But  it  is  not 
so  to-day.  This  free  individual  lavish  process,  while  developing 
men  of  wonderful  leadership  and  making  for  marvelous  progress, 
has  yet  resulted  in  enormous  waste,  and,  judged  from  the  stand- 
point of  general  future  efficiency,  the  price  exacted  has  been 
altogether  disproportionate  and  exorbitant. 

The  concrete  question  now  is,  How  shall  the  schools  set  to 
work  to  solve  the  problem  of  efficiency  and  progress  ?  That  is, 


80  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

How  shall  the  schools  preserve  the  best  of  the  past,  utilize  and 
adapt  it  to  the  present,  and  transmit  it  unimpaired  to  the  future  ? 
Somehow  or  other  the  school  must  help  the  individual  to  find  him- 
self early  in  life  so  that  the  greatest  possible  section  of  life  may  be 
devoted  to  efficient  service.  This  is  by  no  means  easy.  No  task 
which  imposes  upon  an  outside  agency  the  burden  of  compelling 
an  individual  to  make  a  choice  when  no  conscious  choice  exists 
within  the  individual  himself  is  an  easy  one.  It  is,  however,  not 
impossible.  To  begin  with,  the  school  will  have  to  admit,  as 
society  has  always  admitted,  that  a  certain  portion  of  waste  is  in- 
evitable whatever  the  process  employed.  That  there  will  still  be 
individuals  who  must  go  to  the  economic  junk  heap  is  a  foregone 
conclusion.  If  society  believes  that  the  school  can  do  what  no 
other  organization  has  ever  been  able  to  do,  it  is  doomed  to  dis- 
appointment. However,  society  has  a  right  to  demand  that  the 
school  shall  do  the  best  of  which  it  is  capable,  and  that  it  shall  be 
held  accountable  for  any  negligence,  however  small  or  insignificant 
this  negligence  may  appear  to  be. 

The  school  can  and  will  make  good  in  this  newer  problem  of 
modern  efficiency.  And  in  order  to  do  so  it  will  have  to  furnish 
means  whereby  the  young  people  of  this  country  may  have  an  op- 
portunity to  try  themselves  out  along  various  lines  at  such  a  time 
as  experiment  is  least  expensive  and  most  valuable.  The  school 
may  have  to  press  into  service  the  industries  outside  of  the  school- 
room, but  the  directing  of  this  service  will  have  to  remain  in 
the  school.  The  hand  of  the  schoolmaster  must  guide  education. 
Any  other  agency  will  consciously  or  unconsciously  exploit  it  to 
its  own  ends. 

No  person,  however  versed  or  expert  in  the  knowledge  of  oc- 
cupations, can  ever  tell  with  certainty  what  every  individual  is  best 
fitted  to  do.  All  he  can  do  is  to  know  well  the  characteristics  of 
the  individual,  together  with  the  world  into  which  he  is  to  go,  and 
then  give  him  such  advice 'and  guidance  as  he  has  at  his  com- 
mand together  with  an  opportunity  to  try  himself  out  along  the 
lines  suggested  before  definitely  deciding  on  his  life  work.  This 
will  mean  trained  experts  on  the  one  hand  and  fields  for  experi- 
ment on  the  other,  and  both  of  these  at  such  a  time  as  the  mind 


THE  SCHOOLS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE       81 

and  hand  of  the  individual  are  plastic  and  pliable.  This  experi- 
mental stage  will  probably  come  somewhere  between  the  ages  of 
twelve  and  sixteen.  During  these  years  the  schools  must  provide 
special  fields  of  training  so  that  the  individual  may  have  an 
opportunity  to  find  to  which  particular  work  or  calling  he  is  best 
suited,  and  all  this  under  the  observation  of  experts  trained  along 
vocational  lines. 

At  present  not  all  teachers,  by  any  means,  are  fitted  to  give  this 
expert  advice ;  nor  will  they  ever  be.  Vocational  guidance  is  a 
work  for  those  fitted  by  nature,  training,  and  judgment  to  interpret 
the  present  with  reference  to  the  future  and  to  see  in  the  child  the 
possibilities  and  aptitudes  of  the  man.  That  the  schools  will  even- 
tually furnish  such  expert  advice  is  beyond  question.  Education 
has  always  been  and  always  will  be  a  matter  for  the  schools,  no 
matter  by  what  name  such  education  may  be  called. 

Vocational  guidance  requires  close  observation  on  the  part  of 
the  guide.  There  are  two  classes  which  are  easy  to  distinguish. 
They  present  little  or  no  problem  to  the  expert.  They  are  those, 
on  the  one  hand,  who  seem  to  know  almost  from  infancy  what  they 
are  fitted  to  do.  Their  characteristics  are  so  marked  that  they  are 
certain  of  themselves  almost  to  an  infinite  degree  ;  they  are  at  the 
extreme  end  of  the  efficient  economic  line.  The  other  class,  equally 
distinguishable,  numbers  within  itself  those  who  are  born  "short." 
They  are  to  be  the  hewers  of  wood  and  the  drawers  of  water. 
They  are  doomed  to  bear  the  burdens  of  mankind,  and  no  amount 
of  training  can  ever  raise  them  above  the  plane  of  humble  toil 
and  mediocrity  of  circumstance.  They  belong  to  the  frayed  end 
of  the  social  and  economic  line.  Fortunately  their  number  is 
not  great,  but  small  as  it  is  there  is  no  immediate  possibility  of 
its  elimination. 

Vocational  guidance  is  concerned  with  neither  of  these  classes, 
as  they  guide  themselves.  Vocational  guidance  is  concerned  with 
the  great  multitude  between  these  extremes  —  the  multitude  filled 
with  possibilities  known  to  be,  yet  undiscovered ;  the  multitude 
which  is  destined  to  do  the  great  bulk  of  the  world's  work ;  the 
multitude  upon  which  democracy  has  rested  and  must  always  rest ; 
the  multitude  whose  name  is  the  "  average  man." 


82  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  school  is  making  a  magnificent  beginning  in  the  matter  of 
vocational  guidance.  It  is  meeting  the  problem  squarely  and  with 
intelligence.  It  is  cognizant  that  much  is  to  be  learned  and  that 
many  of  the  paths  are  untried  and  untrod.  It  is  making  haste 
slowly,  deliberately,  calculating  every  step.  It  will  not  fail.  It  is 
conscious  of  the  greatness  and  the  nobility  of  the  task.  Its  face  is 
turned  upward  and  to  the  future,  but  its  feet  are  planted  firmly  on 
the  earth.  It  will  guide  the  youth  of  the  land  by  placing  at  their 
disposal  the  advice  and  judgment  of  those  older,  wiser,  and  more 
experienced  than  they.  The  schools  will  not  shirk  their  respon- 
sibility. They  will  assume  the  burdens  cheerfully  and  with  opti- 
mism, confident  that  the  problem,  new  though  it  be,  is  capable  of 
solution.  They  will  make  the  youth  efficient  by  giving  him  an 
opportunity  to  find  himself  and  then  compelling  him  to  do  so,  or 
to  admit  to  himself  his  own  failure.  They  will  preserve  to  democ- 
racy individual  aspiration.  They  will  make  the  individual  efficient, 
and  hence  the  multitude  of  individuals  efficient,  thus  preserving 
and  perpetuating  the  fundamentals  of  democracy  —  freedom  of 
choice  with  something  worthy  to  choose. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  THE 
BOSTON  SCHOOLS 

BY  STRATTON  D.  BROOKS,  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF 

OKLAHOMA;  FORMERLY  SUPERINTENDENT  OF  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS, 

BOSTON,  MASSACHUSETTS 

(An  Address  delivered  at  the  First  National  Conference  on  Vocational 
Guidance,  Boston,  November,  1910) 

At  the  outset  I  wish  to  distinguish  between  vocational  placement 
and  vocational  guidance.  By  vocational  placement  I  mean  fitting 
a  job  to  the  attainments  that  a  boy  now  has.  By  vocational  guid- 
ance I  mean  fitting  a  boy  to  a  job  that  he  will  at  some  future  time 
be  able  to  fill,  if  he  follows  the  course  of  instruction  outlined  by 
his  vocational  adviser.  Vocational  placement  finds  a  job  now  better 
fitted  to  the  boy's  present  attainments  than  he  would  otherwise  be 
likely  to  find.  Vocational  guidance  fits  the  boy  for  a  better  job  in 
the  future  by  training  the  boy  along  the  lines  of  his  greatest  apti- 
tudes and  opportunities.  Both  consider  the  boy's  abilities ;  one 
for  the  purpose  of  making  the  best  possible  present  use  of  them ; 
the  other  with  a  view  to  giving  them  additional  development,  in 
order  to  secure  in  the  future  a  still  greater  use  of  them.  It  is  this 
latter  phase  of  vocational  guidance  that  is  discussed  here. 

Educational  methods  and  educational  machinery  are  being  over- 
hauled in  the  light  of  a  new  purpose ;  namely,  the  more  specific 
preparation  of  pupils  for  particular  vocations  in  life.  The  most  im- 
portant immediate  effect  of  the  movement  for  industrial  education 
has  been  to  move  forward  suddenly  the  time  of  choice,  and  it  is 
this  necessity  to  choose  early  a  definite  career  that  renders  desir- 
able a  consideration  of  vocational  direction. 

The  schools  of  the  past  have  presented  the  same  type  of  educa- 
tion for  all  pupils,  and  vocational  direction  consisted  mainly  in 
advising  a  boy  to  take  or  not  to  take  additional  education.  But 

83 


84  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

under  the  new  conditions  vocational  direction  will  not  only  be 
concerned  with  advising  a  boy  to  take  additional  education,  but 
with  deciding  what  particular  kind  of  additional  education  he 
should  take  in  order  to  be  of  greatest  service  to  himself  and  to 
the  community. 

Formerly,  a  teacher  might  with  a  clear  conscience  advise  a  boy 
to  take  a  high-school  course  or  go  to  college  even  to  prepare  for 
medicine  or  law,  for  the  education  offered  in  high  school  or  college 
was  so  general  in  character  and  so  wide  of  application  that,  what- 
ever the  boy's  future  vocation,  he  was  almost  sure  to  succeed  better 
in  it  because  of  his  extended  training.  Furthermore,  the  final  entry 
into  the  medical  school  or  the  law  school  came  at  so  late  a  date  that 
any  change  of  interest  or  error  in  the  estimate  of  the  boy's  ability 
had  time  to  show  itself.  But  he  who  in  these  days  of  special  edu- 
cation advises  a  boy  to  enter  some  particular  trade  and  selects  for 
him  a  course  of  study  restricted  to  the  practical  elements  of  that 
trade  may  not  give  advice  lightly,  for  the  possibilities  of  error 
are  increased  a  hundredfold,  while  the  possibilities  of  correcting 
an  error,  if  made,  are  almost  nonexistent. 

The  new  element  in  the  situation  and  the  one  that  causes  the 
chief  difficulty,  because  of  the  establishment  of  specific  industrial 
schools,  is  that  the  avowed  purpose  of  industrial  education  is  to 
prepare  for  a  specific  end,  and  in  order  to  be  valuable  and  effective 
to  that  end  it  must  be  restrictive  in  nature.  Cultural  education  is 
criticized  because,  though  good,  it  is  not  good  for  anything  particu- 
lar, while  industrial  education  is  praised  because  it  is  not  only  good, 
but  good  for  something.  When  considered  from  the  point  of  view 
of  vocational  advice,  however,  the  chief  trouble  is  that  industrial 
education,  though  good  for  something,  is  only  good  for  some  one 
thing,  and  in  proportion  as  it  succeeds,  it  limits  for  the  boy  or  girl 
who  received  it  the  possibility  of  success  in  any  other  line  of  en- 
deavor. He  who  enters  upon  a  successful  industrial  training,  espe- 
cially of  the  lower  and  more  specific  type,  becomes  by  that  very 
education  less  fitted  for  entrance  upon  a  different  work.  In  case 
events  show  that  the  boy  is  not  qualified  for  the  work  selected,  there 
is  little  opportunity  to  correct  the  error.  To  advise  a  boy  to  take 
up  a  restrictive  educational  course  is  a  matter  requiring  much  graver 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BOSTON  SCHOOLS       85 

consideration  than  to  advise  him  to  take  a  nonrestrictive  course, 
and  vocational  direction,  therefore,  attains  an  importance  that  it 
has  not  hitherto  had. 

The  chief  motto  of  vocational  direction  in  the  past  has  been, 
"  Aim  at  the  highest."  There  are  those  who  call  our  present  edu- 
cational system  a  failure  on  the  ground  that  we  have  attempted  to 
educate  every  boy  to  become  a  president  of  the  United  States.  But 
the  man  who  should  seriously  criticize  the  school  for  stating  as  its 
aim  the  education  of  presidents  would  fail  to  recognize  that  the 
statement  is  but  the  embodiment  of  the  general  principle  that  every 
boy  shall  have  the  incentive  and  the  opportunity  to  reach  the  highest 
development  of  which  he  is  capable.  It  will  be  unfortunate  indeed 
when  American  education  ceases  to  encourage  everyone  to  take 
active  part  in  democratic  citizenship  and  to  feel  honored  by  the 
opportunity  to  render  public  service.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that 
intellectual  superiority  has  received  greater  recognition  in  the  schools 
than  mechanical  skill ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  same  difference 
has  existed  in  the  world  at  large,  and  that  it  will  probably  continue 
to  exist. 

To-day  we  face  a  new  situation.  The  demand  for  more  skillful 
workmen  is  upon  us,  and  the  people  are  asking  the  schools  to  solve 
the  question.  What  I  want  to  keep  clearly  in  mind,  however,  is 
that  this  ought  not  to  be  a  demand  for  a  substitute  education  but 
for  a  supplementary  education  ;  that  the  error  of  the  school  in  the 
past  in  pointing  every  pupil  toward  academic  callings  would  be  even 
worse  repeated,  if  it  should  now  attempt  to  place  every  boy  in  a 
mechanical  trade. 

There  is  less  danger  to  society  from  men  who  have  aimed  high 
and  failed  because  of  their  own  lack  of  ability  than  there  is  from 
able  and  ambitious  men  who  writhe  under  an  apparently  unjust 
discrimination  of  society  that  gives  greater  rewards  to  other  men 
naturally  no  more  richly  endowed. 

But  whether  we  favor  or  disapprove,  it  seems  evident  that  indus- 
trial education  will  go  forward  and  that  in  the  larger  cities,  at  least, 
separate  schools  will  undoubtedly  be  established,  wherein  each  class 
of  pupils  may  receive  whatever  type  of  elementary  industrial  in- 
struction the  combined  wisdom  of  the  citizens,  the  school  committee, 


86  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

and  the  teachers  determine  to  be  best  suited  to  the  purpose  in  hand. 
The  introduction  of  separate  schools  will  bring  upon  the  American 
people  a  new  and  serious  problem ;  namely,  the  necessity  of  an  early 
choice  of  a  vocation.  Reliable  information  and  competent  advice 
must  be  furnished,  both  to  children  and  to  adults,  showing  what 
vocations  are  open  to  children,  what  conditions  prevail  in  each, 
and  what  the  rewards  of  success  may  be. 

In  view  of  these  needs,  we  have  been  endeavoring  in  Boston  to 
establish  vocational  direction  on  a  satisfactory  foundation.  I  wish 
to  state  briefly  what  has  been  attempted. 

Boston  is  fortunate  in  having  a  group  of  liberal-minded  men  and 
women  through  whose  generosity  the  Vocation  Bureau  has  been 
established  and  maintained.  The  Boston  School  Committee  has 
invited  the  cooperation  of  the  Vocation  Bureau  and  the  director  of 
this  Bureau  has  worked  hand  in  hand  with  the  Vocational  Direction 
Committee  of  the  Public  Schools  —  a  committee  appointed  by  the 
superintendent  and  consisting  of  masters  and  submasters  in  the 
Boston  schools.  Among  the  many  activities  of  the  Vocation 
Bureau,  I  mention  three  :  First,  the  investigation  of  conditions  in 
the  trades  and  businesses  of  Boston.  The  Bureau  has  undertaken 
to  prepare  material  for  the  use  of  pupils,  parents,  and  vocational 
counselors  that  will  furnish  the  best  available  information  with 
reference  to  the  vocational  opportunities  that  exist  in  Boston. 
Second,  the  Vocation  Bureau  is  conducting  in  one  of  the  public- 
school  buildings  a  school  for  vocational  counselors  wherein  teachers 
and  others  who  are  interested  in  this  important  work  may  prepare 
themselves  for  the  better  performance  of  their  important  tasks. 
Third,  the  Vocation  Bureau  has  brought  about  a  cooperation  of 
effort  whereby  various  organizations  have  undertaken  to  perform 
needed  services  without  duplication  of  effort. 

An  important  part  of  the  question  of  vocational  selection  is  the 
amount  of  interest  and  attention  that  parents  must  give.  To  this 
problem  of  arousing  an  interest  in  parents,  the  Home  and  School 
Association  has  agreed  to  devote  especial  attention.  By  means  of 
discussions  before  the  Parents'  Associations  of  which  it  is  composed, 
this  society  will  be  able  to  do  much  to  create  a  widespread  and 
intelligent  interest  in  the  problem. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BOSTON  SCHOOLS       87 

It  is  necessary  also  that  accurate  information  be  gathered  with 
reference  to  the  specific  instruction  offered  in  day  and  evening 
schools  both  public  and  private.  The  Women's  Municipal  League 
has  undertaken  to  collect  this  information  and  to  set  it  forth 
definitely  and  concisely  in  the  form  of  printed  charts. 

To  the  work  of  giving  vocational  advice  to  girls  who  have 
left  school,  the  Girls'  Trade  Education  League  will  give  special 
attention. 

In  the  schools  themselves  many  things  have  been  done  at  the 
suggestion  of  the  Committee  on  Vocational  Direction,  chief  among 
which  is  the  appointment  in  each  high  school  and  elementary  school 
of  one  or  more  vocational  counselors.  These  counselors  have  been 
selected  by  the  principals  with  reference  to  their  interest  in  the 
work  of  vocational  direction,  their  skill  in  determining  the  abilities 
and  possibilities  of  the  children,  and  their  willingness  to  devote 
extra  time  to  acquiring  information  and  perfecting  themselves  for 
the  successful  performance  of  their  duties.  Meetings  of  these  coun- 
selors have  been  held  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the  problems 
of  vocational  direction  and  considering  how  best  to  minimize  its 
dangers  and  increase  its  beneficial  results.  Most  of  them  are  now 
taking  a  course  of  instruction  arranged  by  the  Vocation  Bureau 
wherein  they  may  be  even  more  efficiently  prepared  for  the  work 
of  directing  pupils  wisely.  As  an  illustration  of  the  work  of  these 
vocational  counselors  the  following  will  serve  : 

Last  June  twice  as  many  elementary-school  graduates  as  could 
be  admitted  elected  the  High  School  of  Commerce  and  the  High 
School  of  Practical  Arts.  Hitherto  when  similar  conditions  have 
arisen  it  has  been  necessary  to  choose  the  half  that  could  be  ad- 
mitted either  by  lot  or  on  the  basis  of  scholarship.  This  year  the 
existence  of  the  vocational  counselors  rendered  possible  a  different 
and  a  better  procedure.  The  principal  of  each  elementary  school 
was  sent  a  list  of  the  boys  in  his  school  who  had  applied  for  admis- 
sion to  the  High  School  of  Commerce,  with  the  statement  that  only 
half  could  be  admitted.  The  request  was  made  that  the  vocational 
counselor  of  the  school  select  that  half.  The  principal  of  the  High 
School  of  Commerce  met  the  vocational  counselors,  explained  the 
special  work  done  in  that  school,  and  outlined  the  qualities  that  a 


88  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

boy  must  possess  in  order  to  succeed  therein.  The  vocational 
counselors  then  approached  the  question  of  choosing  the  boys  to  be 
admitted,  having,  on  the  one  hand,  some  knowledge  of  the  special 
qualities  needed  in  that  particular  school  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
a  knowledge  of  the  tastes  and  aptitudes  of  the  boy  as  shown  by  his 
work  in  the  elementary  school.  The  boys  chosen  by  the  vocational 
counselors  were  then  admitted.  A  similar  course  was  pursued  with 
girls  for  the  High  School  of  Practical  Arts,  and  it  is  hoped  that 
this  process  of  selection  has  brought  into  these  schools  a  higher 
percentage  of  pupils  fitted  to  do  the  work  therein  than  could  have 
been  secured  by  either  of  the  methods  previously  pursued. 

Somewhat  different  and  less  difficult  than  the  problem  of  select- 
ing a  school  is  the  work  done  in  specific  vocational  schools,  as 
illustrated  in  the  High  School  of  Commerce  and  the  Trade  School 
for  Girls. 

Since  the  High  School  of  Commerce  was  organized  in  1906 
systematic  instruction  has  been  given  with  reference  to  existing 
business  opportunities  and  the  possibilities  of  each.  Carefully  pre- 
pared courses  of  lectures,  based  on  accurate  investigations  of  condi- 
tions in  Boston  and  elsewhere,  have  been  presented  each  year.  The 
whole  atmosphere  of  the  school  has  been  permeated  with  the  idea 
of  choosing  wisely  some  particular  business.  The  purpose  of  the 
school  is  not  only  to  fit  the  boy  for  a  commercial  career,  but  to  find 
that  particular  commercial  career  in  which  he  gives  promise  of  the 
greatest  progress.  In  order  to  assist  in  the  process  of  fitting  each 
boy  to  his  business  a  system  of  summer  apprenticeship  has  been 
established.  Prior  to  the  summer  vacation  in  1909,  and  again  in 
1910,  the  School  Committee  appointed  a  man  to  have  charge  of 
the  work  of  finding  employment  for  the  high-school  boys  during  the 
summer  in  the  business  houses  of  the  city.  The  business  men  have 
cooperated  heartily  in  the  plan.  They  agree  to  give  the  boys  the 
best  possible  chance  to  obtain  a  knowledge  of  the  business  and 
demonstrate  their  own  fitness  or  unfitness  for  it.  In  particular,  they 
agree  not  to  hire  the  boy  after  school  opens  in  September,  even 
though  he  has  shown  special  aptitude  for  the  work  in  hand.  By 
this  means  the  business  men  have  a  sympathetic  understanding  of 
the  aims  of  the  school,  the  school  appreciates  more  thoroughly  the 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BOSTON  SCHOOLS       89 

demands  made  upon  the  boys  who  enter  business,  and  the  boys 
obtain  some  insight  into  the  relation  of  their  school  tasks  to  their 
life  work. 

In  the  Trade  School  for  Girls  provision  is  made  for  a  vocational 
assistant  for  each  hundred  girls.  The  school  teaches  certain  trades, 
and  the  vocational  assistant  is  charged  with  the  duty  of  investigating 
conditions  existing  in  these  trades,  in  order  to  enable  the  school  to 
adapt  its  course  to  the  exact  needs  of  business  and  to  provide 
accurate  and  up-to-date  information  available  for  use  of  parents 
and  pupils. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  vocational  assistant  to  secure  positions 
for  graduates,  and  in  this  sense  she  conducts  an  employment  bureau, 
but  with  the  important  difference  that  she  knows  both  the  condi- 
tions in  the  trade  and  the  qualifications  of  the  particular  girls,  and 
therefore  endeavors  not  merely  to  find  a  place  for  the  girl,  but  a 
place  where  she  will  succeed.  The  work  of  the  vocational  assistant, 
however,  but  begins  with  finding  a  place  for  the  girl.  It  is  success 
that  counts,  and  the  vocational  assistant  is  to  keep  track  of  her  girls, 
know  which  ones  succeed,  and  more  especially  which  ones  fail,  and 
why  they  fail ;  to  find  for  those  who  fail  other  places  better  suited 
to  their  abilities,  or  perchance  advise  them  to  return  to  school 
until  they  reach  a  degree  of  proficiency  that  will  enable  them  to 
retain  a  position  once  obtained. 

On  the  moral  side  also  the  vocational  assistant  will  have  great 
effect.  Before  the  girl  leaves  school,  it  is  hoped  that  such  a  mutual 
relation  of  confidence  and  friendship  will  be  established  that  any 
girl  who  finds  herself  at  work  in  a  shop  or  factory  where  conditions 
are  improper  will  report  promptly  to  the  vocational  assistant,  with 
the  result  that  the  girl  will  be  placed  in  another  position,  and  that 
no  more  girls  will  be  sent  to  the  shop  or  factory  complained  of  until 
conditions  are  improved.  When  perchance  a  girl  is  placed  in  a  posi- 
tion in  which  she  cannot  advance  or  from  which  she  is  discharged, 
the  vocational  assistant  should  be  on  hand  to  encourage  and  assist, 
to  tide  the  girl  over  immediate  difficulty,  and  to  find  some  other 
work  wherein  there  is  greater  prospect  of  earning  a  living  wage. 

In  both  of  these  schools  it  will  be  observed  that  the  problem  is 
that  of  selecting  a  particular  business  or  trade  within  a  comparatively 


90  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

limited  range  from  which  the  pupil,  by  entering  the  school,  has 
elected  to  choose.  Much  broader  and  far  more  difficult  is  the  task 
of  selecting  the  school  to  which  a  boy  or  girl  should  go,  or  the 
calling  that  he  should  enter  on  leaving  a  school  that  has  given 
him  only  general  preparation.  It  is  in  this  field  that  vocational 
direction  will  be  most  necessary. 

To  secure  information  that  is  accurate  is  comparatively  easy,  but 
to  give  advice  that  is  wise  with  reference  to  selecting  a  life  calling 
is  most  difficult.  He  who  gives  advice  must  know  not  only  the 
relative  advantages  of  the  different  trades,  businesses,  and  profes- 
sions, but  also  the  specific  requirements  for  success  in  each.  To 
determine  what  callings  give  greatest  financial  returns  and  to  advise 
all  pupils  to  seek  those  callings  would  be  to  ignore  the  element  that 
will  make  advice  valuable  ;  namely,  the  careful  consideration  of  the 
tastes,  tendencies,  and  abilities  of  the  pupils,  in  order  that  each 
pupil  may  be  advised  to  select  a  calling  in  which  the  requirements 
for  success  are  such  that  he  may  have  reasonable  expectation  of 
meeting  them.  The  vocational  adviser  must  know  business,  to  be 
sure,  but  he  has  much  greater  need  to  know  boys. 

It  is  evident  that  a  vast  amount  of  scientific  investigation  must 
be  made  before  any  form  of  vocational  advice  can  have  any  substan- 
tial and  reliable  scientific  foundation.  Outside  of  such  elements  as 
courtesy,  tact,  perseverance,  courage,  honesty,  and  the  like,  the 
factors  that  are  really  essential  in  any  single  business  are  as  yet 
undetermined.  The  extent  to  which  success  in  each  calling  depends 
upon  the  strength  or  accuracy  of  muscular  reaction,  upon  the  perti- 
nacity and  rapidity  of  mental  associations,  or  upon  any  one  of  a 
dozen  other  lines  of  mental  and  motor  activity,  still  waits  solution 
in  the  laboratory  of  the  experimental  psychologist.  More  difficult 
still  is  the  determination  of  the  exact  qualifications  of  each  particular 
boy ;  impossible,  in  fact,  under  any  system  of  investigation  that 
now  exists  or  is  likely  to  exist  under  conditions  that  will  be  readily 
applicable  to  thousands  of  children  annually.  When  to  these. diffi- 
culties is  added  that  of  determining  now  with  a  boy  in  the  adolescent 
period  of  rapid  and  turbulent  change  what  will  be  his  dominant,  per- 
manent characteristics  when  he  has  reached  manhood,  it  becomes 
clear  that  even  under  the  most  careful  guidance,  the  giving  of 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BOSTON  SCHOOLS       91 

vocational  advice  must  still  remain  in  the  realm  of  the  uncertain 
and  problematical. 

To  give  advice  as  to  selection  of  a  life  work  must  remain  for  the 
most  part  an  appreciative  art  rather  than  an  exact  science.  It  will 
depend  upon  those  attitudes  of  mind  that  are  appreciative  and  inter- 
pretative, rather  than  upon  those  which  are  analytical  and  scientific. 
Both  the  parent  and  the  expert  vocational  adviser  are  likely  to  be 
in  error ;  the  parent  because  he  is  too  near  the  life  of  the  boy, 
knows  him  too  intimately,  loves  him  too  well,  and  is  too  strongly 
prejudiced  in  his  favor  and  too  prone  to  exaggerate  both  his  minor 
faults  and  his  minor  virtues,  to  enable  him  to  judge  with  all  wisdom 
as  to  the  present  condition  or  future  promise  of  his  child  ;  the  psy- 
chological expert  because  he  is  too  far  from  the  child,  too  unac- 
quainted with  his  attitudes  of  mind,  his  reactions  under  the  stress 
and  irritations  of  life  conditions,  too  remote  to  receive  the  shy  con- 
fidences of  a  fleeting  moment  when  the  child  lifts  but  for  a  second 
the  veil  that  covers  many  latent  possibilities.  Between  the  parent 
and  the  expert  adviser,  however,  is  the  teacher,  who  possesses  or 
should  possess  some  of  the  characteristics  of  each.  I  do  not  mean 
that  there  is  little  use  for  expert  vocational  advice,  but  merely  to 
emphasize  that  its  greatest  work  must  be  done  by  utilizing  as  its 
agents  those  who  now  furnish,  and  who  will  continue  to  furnish, 
ideals,  incentives,  and  directions  to  a  majority  of  all  the  pupils 
in  school. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  AND  PUBLIC  EDUCATION 

BY  PAUL  H.  HANUS,  PROFESSOR  OF  EDUCATION,  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 

(From  The  School  Review,  January,  1911) 

At  the  First  National  Conference  on  Vocational  Guidance  held 
in  Boston  under  the  joint  auspices  of  the  Boston  Vocation  Bureau 
and  the  Boston  Chamber  of  Commerce  on  November  15  and  16, 
1910,  several  hundred  persons  were  in  attendance.  Forty-five  cities 
sent  delegates,  including  cities  as  widely  separated  as  New  York, 
Baltimore,  Pittsburgh,  Chicago,  and  Grand  Rapids.  It  is  apparent 
that  the  problems  of  systematic  vocational  guidance  are  attracting 
the  attention  their  importance  deserves. 

These  problems  are,  of  course,  not  new.  But  organization  for 
systematic  attention  to  them  is  very  recent.  It  has  been  stimulated 
by  and  is  naturally  associated  with  three  important  contemporary 
tendencies  in  public  education.  These  tendencies  are  really  only 
different  phases  of  one  comprehensive  movement  for  approximating 
more  closely  our  democratic  ideal  of  individual  welfare  and  social 
progress.  They  are  the  safeguarding  and  promotion  of  bodily 
health  and  vigor  by  an  important  extension  of  the  work  of  the  de- 
partments of  school  hygiene  and  physical  training  in  our  schools ; 
the  progressive  establishment  of  public  vocational  schools  of  ele- 
mentary and  secondary  grade,  that  is,  of  vocational  schools  other 
than  professional  schools,  for  increasing  the  efficiency  of  all  who 
work  in  industry,  agriculture,  or  commerce  ;  and  a  widespread  effort 
to  make  the  nonvocational  schools  we  already  have,  of  every  grade 
and  kind,  more  vital  —  that  is,  to  make  the  pupil's  school  life  so 
significant  a  part  of  his  whole  life  that  it  shall  be  and  remain  a 
guiding  force,  no  matter  at  what  point  his  school  life  must  close. 

It  is  clear  that  with  these  tendencies  well  established  in  the 
schools  the  question  of  vocational  guidance  is  a  pressing  question. 

92 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  AND  PUBLIC  EDUCATION      93 

Where  these  tendencies  are  not  yet  marked,  vocational  guidance  is 
equally  essential,  for  there  the  pupil  is  likely  to  be  quite  helpless 
when  he  makes  the  transition  from  school  to  vocation  —  a  momen- 
tous transition  indeed.  This  transition  cannot  be  safe  unless  the 
choice  of  the  pupil's  life-career  is  deliberate.  Even  then  mistakes 
will  be  made,  but  we  may  expect  that  they  will  be  small  in  number 
and  importance  as  compared  with  the  mistakes  of  random  choice 
or  mere  "job-hunting." 

A  wise  choice  of  a  calling  demands  accessible  opportunities  of 
satisfactory  preparation  for  it,  adaptation  of  personality  and  capacity 
to  it,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  employment  and  of  the 
prospective  rewards,  material,  spiritual,  and  social,  of  satisfactory 
work  in  it.  These  are  problems  of  vocational  guidance.  How  much 
depends  on  their  satisfactory  solution  for  each  ambitious  youth,  both 
for  himself  and  for  society,  need  not  be  dwelt  upon.  What  we  must 
deplore  now  is  the  absence  of  such  guidance  for  the  great  majority 
of  each  generation,  and  the  fact  that  until  quite  recently  we  have 
been  unconscious  of  our  duty  in  this  respect ;  or  at  least  that  we 
have  not  endeavored  to  equip  ourselves  satisfactorily  to  discharge 
that  duty. 

Who  the  wisest  vocation  counselors  may  be,  in  the  end,  we  can- 
not now  say.  Perhaps  the  parents,  made  conscious  by  their  own 
vocational  guidance  in  youth  of  its  significance  and  importance,  and 
more  responsive  to  their  whole  duty  to  their  children  in  this  respect 
than  most  of  them  have  been  in  the  past ;  perhaps  the  employers 
of  children  and  youth,  also  rendered  more  responsive  to  the  per- 
manent welfare  of  their  employees  than  many  of  them  now  are,  and 
knowing  better  than  anyone  else  the  advantages  and  the  limitations 
of  the  employment  they  offer,  and  the  disadvantages  to  themselves 
of  the  present  haphazard  choice  of  their  employees  ;  perhaps  the 
teachers,  always  solicitous  for  the  future  of  their  charges  and 
rendered  by  some  training  for  this  work  more  competent  to  cope 
with  the  difficult  problems  of  vocational  guidance  than  most  of 
them  now  feel  themselves  to  be ;  perhaps  a  body  of  vocational 
counselors  specially  trained  for  the  purpose  —  a  body  of  men  and 
women  each  of  whom  knows  equally  well  the  children  and  youth 
whom  they  counsel  and  a  group  of  employments  open  to  them ; 


94  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

perhaps  all  of  these  together.  But,  whoever  may  be  the  wisest 
counselors  in  the  end,  it  is  clear  that  we  cannot  wait  to  make  a 
beginning.  There  is  too  much  at  stake.  Our  present  duty  is  plain, 
namely,  to  seek  to  give  to  all  these  prospective  and  present  coun- 
selors —  for  they  have  been  and  they  will  continue  to  be  vocational 
advisers  —  the  best  available  equipment  for  their  responsibilities. 
This  is  one  of  our  most  important  tasks,  and  one  of  the  most 
difficult. 

It  is  clear  that  much  preparation  is  needed  by  those  on  whom 
the  duty  of  vocational  guidance  may  fall.  Information  must  be  had 
of  the  young  people  themselves,  their  physical  condition,  their 
capacity,  their  ambitions,  the  opportunities  and  circumstances  of 
their  lives  ;  similarly,  information  is  needed  about  occupations,  their 
advantages  and  disadvantages  in  view  of  the  natural  and  acquired 
equipment  for  them  possessed  by  prospective  workers,  the  kind  of 
preparation  required  for  them,  and  the  extent  and  quality  of  the 
available  preparation  for  a  progressive  career  in  them,  and  what 
success  in  them  means.  To  gather  this  information  and  make  it 
available  for  use  will  require  time  and  effort.  And  to  give  satis- 
factory guidance  by  properly  trained  persons  to  the  great  body  of 
young  people  whose  life  work  is  now  almost  inevitably  determined 
by  chance  will  require  an  army  of  devoted  workers. 

Of  course,  preparation  for  the  transition  from  school  life  to  life 
work  must  be  gradual.  That  transition  must  be  seen  from  afar 
by  the  pupil.  Vocational  guidance  cannot  be  safely  deferred  until 
the  pupil  is  on  the  threshold  of  the  world's  work.  A  satisfactory 
vocation  must  be  a  goal  toward  which  his  thoughts  and  ambitions 
have  been  directed  during  the  entire  period  of  his  tutelage.  But 
the  school  must  not  prematurely  narrow  the  pupil's  outlook  or  his 
educational  opportunities. 

Up  to  about  fourteen  years  of  age,  by  statute,  in  all  progressive 
countries,  all  children  must  go  to  school.  But  when  they  are  four- 
teen years  old  most  of  them  must  face  the  problem  of  hozv  to  make 
a  living.  For  some  time  they  have  been  asking,  "  What  am  I  to 
be  ?  "  At  this  moment,  general  or  incidental  vocational  information 
is  no  longer  adequate.  It  is  accordingly  a  culminating  period  for 
specific  vocational  guidance.  The  counselor  is  not  to  tell  the  pupil 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  AND  PUBLIC  EDUCATION     95 

now,  or  at  any  time,  what  vocation  to  enter.  It  is  his  duty  to  make 
sure  that  whatever  vocation  the  pupil  enters,  he  enters  it  deliber- 
ately, and  with  as  full  a  knowledge  of  all  that  this  step  means  as 
can  be  obtained.  The  counselor  does  not  prescribe  a  vocation  which 
the  pupil  takes.  The  pupil  chooses  his  vocation  after  full  consider- 
ation of  all  the  factors  and  consequences  of  his  choice.  Neverthe- 
less, the  time  for  choice  has  come,  and  the  issues  must  be  met. 

One  important  duty  of  all  the  advisers  of  youth  is  to  bring  home 
to  all  who  can  be  brought  to  see  it  the  enormous  value  of  more 
education  for  every  capable  pupil,  no  matter  when  he  leaves  school 
—  and  no  matter  whether  the  chief  purpose  of  the  school  he  attends 
is  to  teach  him  how  to  live  or  how  to  make  a  living.  One  valuable 
result  of  satisfactory  vocational  counseling  ought  therefore  to  be 
to  lengthen  the  period  of  education  for  all  but  the  incurably  dull 
or  the  permanently  unambitious. 

During  the  entire  high-school  period  vocational  insight  and  aims 
still  require  attention  ;  but  another  culminating  period  for  specific 
vocational  guidance  comes  at  the  close  of  the  pupil's  secondary- 
school  career,  when  all  but  a  small  percentage  of  those  who  remained 
in  school  four  years  after  leaving  the  elementary  school  must  begin 
to  earn  their  living.  Beyond  the  school,  in  the  college,  the  need  of 
vocational  guidance  is  by  no  means  at  an  end. 

All  this  means  that  throughout  his  entire  educational  career  the 
pupil's  vocational  insight  and  vocational  purposes  should  be  pro- 
gressively developed.  Each  pupil's  attention  should  be  directed  to 
a  vocation  to  which  he  may  reasonably  aspire  ;  that  is,  every  pupil 
should  be  led  gradually  to  realize  that  a  suitable  vocation,  accessible 
to  him  and  adapted  to  him,  is  indispensable  to  a  useful  and  happy 
life.  As  he  approaches  the  end  of  his  school  career,  whatever  his 
age  may  be,  he  should  come  to  see  that  his  vocation  will  be  not 
only  the  means  of  satisfying  his  personal  wants  and  ambitions,  but 
because  it  is  the  chief  means  of  establishing  significant  relations 
between  himself  and  his  fellow  men,  it  is  also  the  source  of  such 
public  service  as  he  is  capable  of  and  may  be  called  upon  to  render. 
And  about  the  time  he  must  leave  school  or  college  he  ought  to 
have  an  answer  to  the  questions,  How  can  I  best  realize  my 
ambitions  ?  What  vocation  ought  I  to  choose  ? 


THE   UNIVERSITY  AND   VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE 

BY  PROFESSOR  E.  L.  THORNDIKE,  PROFESSOR  OF  EDUCATIONAL 
PSYCHOLOGY,  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 

(An  Address  delivered  at  the  Alumni  Conference  at  Teachers  College,  1913) 

Of  every  hundred  pupils  who  entered  school,  say  twenty  years 
ago,  over  thirty  left  school  before  completing  the  sixth  grade.  And 
for  these  thirty  out  of  a  hundred  (these  half-million  children  in  all 
each  year)  the  school  did  nothing  when  it  let  them  go,  and  practi- 
cally nothing  at  all  afterwards.  Even  if  a  pupil  had  reached  the 
high  school,  he  was  still  allowed  to  drift  away  and  drop  out,  with 
no  more  care  than  the  pirates  of  traditional  storybooks  gave  to  their 
marooned  captives.  Whether  we  consider  the  hundred  thousand 
boys  and  girls  who  drop  out  of  high  school  in  the  first  year,  or  the 
two  thirds  of  the  graduates  of  elementary  schools  who  go  no  farther, 
in  either  case  we  find  the  school  ship  sailing  away,  leaving  the 
castaways  to  steer  their  course  without  chart  or  compass. 

Until  lately,  not  one  person  in  a  thousand  felt  any  duty  to  inter- 
pose between  the  requirements  of  industry  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  hopes  and  fears  of  the  child  and  his  parents  on  the  other.  It 
was  thought  that  giving  a  child  an  education  was  enough.  To  help 
him  to  use  it,  and  to  use  his  inborn  capacities  as  well,  by  guiding  his 
choice  of  a  vocation  and  supervising  his  contracts  with  employers, 
would  have  been  thought,  I  suppose,  too  paternalistic,  or  too  soci- 
alistic, or  too  much  of  a  usurpation  of  the  duties  of  the  family,  or 
too  much  of  an  infringement  on  the  rights  of  the  individual,  if, 
indeed,  twenty  years  ago  anybody  had  thought  of  the  matter  at  all. 

To-day  the  duty  is  felt.  Children  will  not  be  left  to  decide  what 
employments  they  will  work  at  in  the  world  as  ignorantly  and  care- 
lessly as  they  decide  what  neckties  they  will  wear.  Vocational 
guidance  will  be  given  by  private  philanthropic  or  commercial 
bureaus  if  it  is  not  given  by  the  public's  own  schools. 

96 


97 

I  shall  not  spend  your  time  in  proving  what  most  of  you  know, 
and  the  rest  will  very  soon  find  out,  if  you  confer  with  the  morally 
and  intellectually  progressive  men  and  women  in  any  community  ; 
namely,  that  the  children  now  in  our  schools  are  going  to  have 
some  form  of  vocational  guidance.  The  only  questions  profitable 
for  'us  here  to  discuss  are,  Who  shall  give  this  guidance,  and 
What  sort  of  guidance  shall  it  be  ? 

In  both  of  these  questions  we  all  have  a  great  and  real  inter- 
est. The  answers  to  them  which  I  shall  try  to  defend  are  (i)  that 
the  public  should  give  this  guidance  through  the  school  as  its 
agent  delegated  with  full  power,  and  (2)  that  the  guidance  given 
should  be  based  on  the  most  exact  and  comprehensive  and  con- 
scientious investigations  that  the  best  men  procurable  can  possibly 
make. 

We  should,  of  course,  all  be  glad  to  see  charitable  organizations 
undertake  this  work  of  diagnosing  the  capacities  and  interests  of 
individual  children  and  of  guiding  their  vocational  choices,  as  a 
matter  of  benevolence.  Or,  we  should  be  glad  to  see  employers 
undertake  it  as  a  matter  of  business  enterprise,  or  duty,  or  both. 
It  is  a  useful  work  for  either  of  them,  or  for  the  family,  or  for  the 
church.  But  the  better  way  is  for  the  community  to  undertake  it 
as  a  matter  of  public  policy  and  social  justice.  For  even  the  wisest 
charitable  organizations  cannot  do  it  adequately.  It  is  not  the  poor, 
the  incompetent,  the  dependent  —  the  group  with  which  charitable 
associations  most  easily  come  in  contact  —  whose  vocational  guid- 
ance is  a  matter  of  prime  importance.  The  employers,  humane 
though  they  be,  will  by  habit  tend  to  emphasize  only  the  suitability 
of  a  given  child  for  a  given  job  ;  whereas,  the  greater  view  of  the 
problem  is  to  make  sure  of  the  suitability  of  a  given  job  for  the 
child.  It  is  also  unfortunately  the  case  with  employers  that  they, 
and  charitable  organizations  as  well,  will  at  present  be  suspected 
(whether  justly  or  unjustly  I  am  not  prepared  to  say)  of  using  the 
institutions  for  their  selfish  interests.  Further,  as  we  have  again 
and  again  been  convinced  in  the  course  of  the  last  decade,  the 
management  of  business  and  industry  seems  to  be  now  our  most 
pressing  and  important  public  concern.  So  the  vocational  guidance 
of  children  seems  to  be  a  public  rather  than  a  private  duty. 


98  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  school,  I  think,  should  be  the  public's  delegate  in  the 
matter,  first,  for  the  sake  of  economy,  and,  second,  for  the  sake 
of  safety.  It  is  more  economical  for  the  school  to  diagnose  a 
pupil's  capacities  and  interests,  because  (i)  a  large  part  of  the 
information  needed  must  be  got  from  the  school  records,  the  pupil's 
teachers,  and  his  classmates,  in  any  case,  and  (2)  the  school  system 
provides  a  single  convenient  source  to  which  any  employer  can  at 
any  time  apply  for  information  about  any  child  educated  in  the 
community.  Further,  the  school  provides  a  convenient  clearing- 
house for  the  transmission  of  such  information  from  one  community 
to  another  where  the  child  moves.  Finally,  as  I  could  show  if  time 
permitted,  the  testing  of  children's  fitness  for  various  vocations  can 
be  enormously  facilitated  by  giving  many  of  the  tests  to  whole 
classes  at  once,  with  the  aid  of  regular  school  attitude  and  discipline. 

It  is  safer  for  the  school,  rather  than  some  other  agency,  to  diag- 
nose a  pupil's  capacities  and  interests  and  guide  his  vocational 
choices,  because  the  teachers  and  supervisory  officers  of  schools 
and  colleges  will  be  quicker  to  detect  charlatanism  in  the  men  and 
women  doing  this  particular  work  than  philanthropic  workers, 
clergymen,  or  regular  employers  would  be  ;  and  because  the  same 
man  will  be  less  likely  to  indulge  in  questionable  methods,  to  claim 
too  much  for  his  diagnosis  and  guidance,  or  to  advance  himself 
at  the  expense  of  his  work  if  he  works  in  a  school  or  university 
than  if  he  works  isolatedly  in  some  special  and  private  bureau  of 
vocational  guidance. 

Schools,  colleges,  and  universities  have  many  faults,  but  from 
intellectual  carelessness,  tawdry  self-advertisement,  and  from  the 
debasement  of  knowledge  or  skill  for  profit  they  are  relatively 
free.  The  great  danger  to  the  man  who  gives  vocational  guidance 
is  that  he  shall  become  a  pretentious  charlatan.  For  him  to  work 
amongst  scholarly  men  and  women  is  the  best  means  for  him  to 
reduce  that  tendency  —  his  greatest  danger. 

I  may  seem  to  have  neglected  somewhat  the  need  of  knowledge 
of  the  industries  as  compared  with  the  knowledge  of  interest  and 
capacity  of  the  child.  The  school  certainly  cannot  give  adequate 
vocational  guidance  unless  it  knows  the  nature  of  the  industries, 
the  services  that  each  important  variety  of  productive  labor  consists 


THE  UNIVERSITY  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE      99 

of,  and  the  opportunities  and  hardships  that  attend  it.  But,  as  I 
could  make  clearer,  if  time  permitted,  it  is  far  more  practicable 
for  school  officers  charged  with  the  work  of  vocational  guidance 
to  learn  once  for  all  about  a  few  hundred  Vocations  than  for  the 
officers  of  charitable  or  business  organizations  to  learn  annually 
about  a  million  boys  and  a  million  girls. 

The  diagnoses  and  recommendations  made  must  be  made  from 
scientific  knowledge,  and  the  problems  of  individual  diagnosis  and 
guidance  must  be  subjected  to  investigation  by  the  best  talent  pro- 
curable, for  many  reasons.  Three  of  these  I  will  mention  :  First, 
it  would  be  folly  to  change  the  present  arrangement  whereby  the 
boy  or  girl  follows  interest  as  far  as  he  can,  and  the  employer 
follows  the  habits  of  choice  that  he  thinks,  from  his  experience  in 
the  past,  have  been  successful,  as  far  as  he  can,  and  both  experi- 
ment until  a  status  more  or  less  satisfactory  is  reached  —  unless 
we  can  tell  with  surety  as  we  go  along  in  our  new  experiment 
whether  we  are  changing  it  for  the  better.  It  would  be  folly,  be- 
cause a  failure  now  would  set  back  the  whole  work  of  rationalizing 
and  humanizing  the  employment  of  labor  for  perhaps  a  generation. 

Secondly,  although  a  very  moderate  use  of  common  sense  and 
organization  of  present  knowledge  seems  fairly  sure  to  eliminate 
many  wrastes,  such  as  the  aimless  trial  by  a  girl  of  each  opportunity 
presented  by  a  "  Girl  wanted  "  sign,  or  the  study  of  medicine  by 
a  seventeen-year-old  boy  who  detests  and  fails  in  all  the  natural 
sciences  and  manual  arts  but  earns  a  hundred  dollars  a  month  by 
the  organization  of  the  sale  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  —  these 
easy  negative  economies  in  fitting  men  to  positions  are  not  the 
main  issue.  The  main  issue  is  not  the  mere  provision  of  persons 
to  supply  the  common  sense  and  ordinary  knowledge  which  many 
children  and  certain  parents  lack,  but  the  provision  of  knowledge 
of  the  requirements  of  each  vocation,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the 
early  symptoms  of  various  features  of  intellect,  character,  and  skill, 
on  the  other,  whereby  we  can  give  advice  as  much  beyond  that 
of  the  most  sagacious  adviser  to-day  as  his  is  beyond  the  casual 
judgment  of  the  average  parent. 

It  is  also  the  case  that  common  sense  and  sagacity  are  effective 
in  exact  proportion  to  the  knowledge  of  facts  and  principles  which 


100  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

elaborate  and  scientific  study  supplies.  Not  all  the  common  sense 
in  the  world  could  alone  have  kept  the  plague  out  of  Europe,  or 
yellow  fever  out  of  Panama  for  the  last  six  years.  Common  sense 
is  needed,  but  it  would  not  have  been  serviceable  alone. 

Further  still,  exact  and  scientific  study  which  I  am  recommend- 
ing in  the  case  of  vocational  guidance  will  give  results  whereby 
even  a  mediocre  person  in  this  field  can  do  excellent  work.  A 
gifted  man  can  give  excellent  advice  now,  but  we  need  a  set  of 
facts  and  principles  whereby  a  thousand  men  and  women  will,  fifteen 
years  from  now,  be  able  to  advise  children  and  employers.  The 
progress  of  medical  science  has  been  such  that  the  stupidest  grad- 
uate of  our  medical  school  this  year  will  give  better  medical  advice 
than  Hippocrates  or  Galen  ever  did.  Through  the  knowledge  of 
the  science  of  human  nature  and  its  work  in  the  industries,  pro- 
fessions, and  trades,  the  average  graduate  of  Teachers  College  in 
1950  ought  to  be  able  to  give  better  advice  to  a  high-school  boy 
about  the  choice  of  an  occupation  than  Solomon,  Socrates,  and 
Benjamin  Franklin  all  together  could  give. 

This  I  myself  regard  as  settled.  But  I  presume  that,  for  the 
sake  of  those  present  who  have  not  kept  track  of  certain  recent 
very  special  work  in  educational  psychology,  I  should  justify  this 
hope  of  what  we  may  be  able  to  do  in  the  future  by  showing  that 
we  can  do  something  even  now. 

As  an  illustration,  I  choose  the  very  practical  case  of  prophesying 
how  long  a  pupil  will  continue  in  high  school.  Dr.  Van  Denburg 
compiled  certain  information  —  and  if  I  make  any  mistake  in  my 
figures,  he  is  here  to  refute  them  —  obtained  from  each  of  a  thou- 
sand pupils  entering  the  public  high  schools  of  New  York  City, 
in  the  month  of  February,  1906,  and  then  kept  track  of  the  length 
of  time  that  each  continued  in  the  high  school.  First,  let  us  con- 
sider the  significance  of  the  pupils'  answers  to  the  following  ques- 
tions obtained  upon  the  entrance  of  each  pupil  into  the  high  school : 

1.  "  Do  you  intend  to  complete  the  high-school  course  ?  " 

2.  "  What  do  you  intend  to  do  for  a  living  ?  " 

There  is  a  third  reason  why  vocational  guidance  should  depend 
upon  scientific  investigations  of  its  problems,  and  why  expert 
knowledge  by  him  who  is  to  be  the  school's  officer  in  this  activity 


THE  UNIVERSITY  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE    IOI 

is  necessary.  This  third  reason  is,  that  this  new  officer  of  the  school, 
who  does  this  work,  mediating  as  he  will  between  the  employer 
and  the  employed,  will  very  soon  become  important  in  connection 
with  many  other  relations  between  the  capitalist  and  the  laborer. 
This  new  school  officer  —  this  "vocational  guider  "  —will  advise 
boys  and  girls  not  to  enter  certain  industries  or  certain  trades,  or 
even  not  to  enter  certain  individual  factories  or  shops.  He  will  do 
this  on  moral,  or  hygienic,  or  economic  grounds.  Where  the  men 
and  women  responsible  for  that  trade,  or  that  individual  establish- 
ment, are  selfish  or  unwise,  or  both,  they  will  attack  him.  And  he 
will  have  no  protection  from  attack  so  safe  as  the  public  respect, 
which,  say,  to-day  the  expert  in  medicine  at  the  head  of  the  Rocke- 
feller Institute  has.  If  the  men  and  women  in  question  are  humane, 
or  wise,  or  both,  they  will  ask  him  to  suggest  means  of  improving 
the  conditions  in  the  industry.  And  nothing  will  so  surely  provide 
him  with  knowledge  of  what  facts  and  which  persons  can  be  relied 
on  in  such  ameliorative  work  as  will  an  established  body  of  rigor- 
ously demonstrated  facts  about  industries  which  will  serve  as  means 
to  satisfying  and  improving  human  wants.  This  is  only  one  sample 
of  many  ways  in  which  this  school  officer  will  be  led  or  forced  to 
play  a  part  in  the  conflicts  between  the  employer  and  the  employee 
—  and  these  conflicts  in  spite  of  our  hopes  will  not  disappear  with 
the  next  generation  —  and  also  in  their  cooperations,  which  he 
should  be  able  greatly  to  encourage.  He  may  use  whatever  shrewd- 
ness, diplomacy,  and  political  skill  he  has,  but  no  amount  of  these 
will  do  the  peculiar  work  which  the  sincere,  unvarnished  assertion 
of  a  person  known  to  be  an  expert  to  the  effect  that  a  certain  thing 
is  so,  that  this  is  the  best  way,  and  that  such-and-such  are  the 
reasons,  will  do  for  him. 

The  scientific  study  of  fitting  the  individual  differences  of  human 
beings  to  differences  in  the  work  of  the  world  —  in  the  industries 
and  professions  —  should  lead,  then,  to  the  study  of  the  whole 
work  of  man  as  a  worker,  and  it  should  bring,  at  least  in  my  opinion, 
a  far  better  understanding  than  we  now  have  of  the  defects  in  our 
arrangements  for  productive  labor,  and  of  their  remedies. 

For  these  reasons,  then,  it  seems  to  me  sure  that  it  is  not  prac- 
tical to  plan  vocational  guidance  as  merely  a  group  of  purified 


102  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

and  somewhat  humanized  employment  agencies.  A  thousand  such, 
useful  as  they  may  be,  would  not  have  the  practical  value  of  one 
first-class  institute  for  the  study  of  human  capacities  for  productive 
labor  and  of  the  especial  demands  which  modern  industry  makes ; 
or,  rather,  their  practical  services  would  be  multiplied  by  it  enor- 
mously. A  thousand  nurses,  working  each  a  lifetime,  could  not 
have  done  the  work  that  has  been  done  in  preventing  the  spread 
of  typhoid  and  yellow  fever  by  the  discoveries  of  four  or  five  men 
in  a  single  decade ;  and  these  discoveries  will  live  on  long  after 
all  the  nurses  are  dead.  We  should  all  welcome  the  establishment 
of  a  little  dispensary  for  reliable  drugs  in  every  county,  but  what 
would  that  service  be,  relatively,  to  the  discovery  of  the  antitoxin 
for  diphtheria  and  membranous  croup,  or  of  the  means  of  detect- 
ing the  typhoid  bacillus  in  milk  and  water,  or  the  discovery  of 
preventive  inoculation  against  typhoid  ? 

The  only  practical  sort  of  vocational  guidance,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  the  sort  that  provides  not  only  for  palliative  treatment  as  we 
go  along,  in  the  present,  but  also  for  the  discovery  of  preventive 
treatment ;  not  only  for  the  use  of  what  little  we  know  about  indus- 
tries and  human  capacities,'  but  for  the  steady  and,  if  possible,  the 
rapid  advancement  of  knowledge  about  them. 

These  are  a  few  of  the  simpler  reasons  for  my  hope  that  voca- 
tional guidance  may  become  a  regular  service  of  the  school  to  the 
public  and  that  it  may  be  as  scientific  in  applying  psychology, 
sociology,  and  economics  as  modern  bridge-building,  animal- 
breeding,  and  preventive  medicine  are  in  applying  physics,  biology, 
and  bacteriology. 

My  half  hour  is  overrun,  and  my  message  is  still  incomplete. 
But,  incomplete  as  it  is,  it  will  perhaps  lead  some  of  you  to  share 
my  hope  that  vocational  guidance  will  become  the  work  of  the 
public-school  system  in  America  ;  that  it  may  be  given  by  specially 
trained  men  and  women  in  accord  with  broad  and  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  the  world's  work  and  the  intellectual  and  moral  capacities 
of  its  individual  workers ;  and  that  Teachers  College  may  have 
a  share  in  the  discovery  of  this  knowledge  and  in  the  training  of 
these  men  and  these  women  to  use  it.  Let  those  of  us  who  cherish 
this  hope  work  to  fulfill  it. 


SUGGESTIONS  TOWARD  A  TENABLE  THEORY 
OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

BY  H.  D.  KITSON,  ASSOCIATE  IN  PSYCHOLOGY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 
(From  Manual  Training  and  Vocational  Education,  January,  1915) 

The  concept  of  vocational  guidance  has  been  rapidly  developing 
during  the  past  few  years.  With  amazing  rapidity  it  has  been 
forcing  itself  upon  the  attention  of  all  classes  of  society  —  upon 
a  misfitted  and  dissatisfied  public  who  sees  in  it  a  possible  solution 
of  its  individual  vocational  problems,  upon  industry  which  sees  in 
it  possible  amelioration  of  numerous  economic  ills,  and  upon  edu- 
cation which  sees  in  it  a  means  for  the  fulfillment  of  its  highest 
responsibility,  the  fitting  of  the  individual  to  cope  with  his  environ- 
ment. In  view  of  the  popularity  which  has  favored  this  movement 
and  of  the  claims  which  are  being  advanced  in  its  name,  it  is  fitting 
that  the  concept  be  examined  as  to  its  validity,  so  that  if  any  part 
of  it  be  found  untenable,  a  new  and  more  promising  hypothesis 
may  be  adopted  before  great  mischief  is  wrought. 

Considering  vocational  guidance  as  a  part  of  the  work  of  the 
public  school,  all  agree  that  its  first  function  is  to  give  vocational 
information.  Its  thorough  application  requires  that  information  be 
given  about  a  vast  number  of  occupations.  Young  people  must 
learn  what  the  world  is  doing  before  they  can  decide  what  part 
they  should  play  in  the  world's  work.  Furthermore,  facts  should 
be  widely  disseminated  about  the  commoner  occupations  in  order 
that  choice  may  be  based  upon  knowledge,  not  upon  mere  guess. 
This  informative  function  is  acknowledged  by  all  to  be  a  legitimate 
phase  of  vocational  guidance,  and  to  be  a  necessity  for  all  effective 
education. 

The  other  phase  of  vocational  guidance  which  is  generally  recog- 
nized is  its  individual  aspect.  Its  aim  is  frequently  stated  in  the 

103 


104  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

words  of  the  old  saw,  "to  keep  round  pegs  out  of  square  holes." 
It  tacitly  assumes  that  every  individual  is  either  round  or  square ; 
that  he  is  fitted  for  one  kind  of  work  in  preference  to  anything 
else.  It  assumes  a  native  capacity  present  in  unchangeable  degree. 
In  order  to  discover  this  native  capacity  it  is  generally  held  that 
the  individual  must  submit  to  a  series  of  tests,  psychological  and 
physiological,  and  on  the  basis  of  the  results,  together  with  such 
sociological  and  economic  data  as  may  be  relevant,  it  will  be  pos- 
sible to  give  positive  advice  as  to  the  right  vocation  to  enter.  This 
fairly  represents  the  prevailing  notion  about  vocational  guidance. 
The  idea  has  been  widely  exploited  and  has  been  made  the  basis 
of  some  rather  extravagant  promises.  Already  there  is  noticeable 
a  tendency  toward  commercialization  of  the  public  interest  in  the 
matter,  and  vocational  "  prescriptions,"  compounded  in  most  un- 
scientific fashion,  are  being  furnished  for  considerations  varying 
from  two  to  twenty-five  dollars.  Sad  to  say,  the  public  listens  eagerly 
to  the  promises  of  this  pseudoscientific  vocational  guidance,  and 
naturally  demands  of  scientists  and  educators  that  they  fulfill 
these  promises. 

OBJECTIONS  TO  CURRENT  CONCEPTION 

A  careful  examination  of  the  prevailing  notion  about  vocational 
guidance  shows  that  it  is  open  to  serious  objections  which  must  be 
pointed  out  and  overcome  if  real  progress  is  to  be  made.  In  the 
first  place,  much  misunderstanding  about  the  use  of  psychological 
tests  will  have  to  be  corrected.  Popular  fancy  regards  a  single  one- 
hour  test  as  probably  sufficient  to  indicate  vocational  aptitude.  Any 
plan,  however,  that  involves  single  measurements  of  mental  capacity 
is  bound  to  meet  with  difficulties.  Power  of  achievement  varies 
from  day  to  day  according  to  changes  in  weather,  physiological  and 
emotional  conditions.  This  fact  vitiates  the  reliability  of  single 
measurements,  and  any  system  of  psychological  tests  that  claims 
validity  must  make  allowance  for  it.  It  does  not  constitute  an  insur- 
mountable obstacle,  however,  as  with  sufficient  research  it  will  prob- 
ably be  possible  to  devise  a  method  whereby  this  can  be  allowed  for. 
Nevertheless  it  should  be  kept  in  mind  as  a  possible  source  of  error. 


SUGGESTIONS  TOWARD  A  TENABLE  THEORY      105 

But  even  with  the  errors  due  to  chance  samplings  eliminated, 
there  is  a  further  difficulty  in  depending  upon  single  measurements ; 
namely,  failure  to  measure  susceptibility  to  improvement.  It  cannot 
be  ascertained  from  results  of  a  single  test,  to  what  extent  an  indi- 
vidual is  capable  of  profiting  by  practice.  Not  only  is  the  individual 
susceptible  to  improvement  beyond  the  limits  of  his  first  attainment 
in  any  task,  but  also  the  degrees  of  improvability  vary  among  in- 
dividuals as  much  as  do  the  measures  of  initial  performance.  If 
experimental  psychology  has  demonstrated  any  one  thing  clearly, 
it  is  that  individuals  vary  enormously  in  capacity  for  training,  and 
the  arrangement  of  a  series  of  first  measures  does  not  bear  a  con- 
stant ratio  to  measures  in  successive  trials.  This  is  evidenced  in 
widely  different  kinds  of  mental  activity,  from  simple  acts  such  as 
the  discrimination  between  two  tones,  to  complex  acts  such  as  type- 
writing. It  is  evident,  then,  that  any  system  of  testing  that  is  to 
be  reliable  must  be  far  more  elaborate  than  is  popularly  supposed. 
It  must  provide  for  measurement  of  capacity  for  improvement  as 
well  as  ability  in  initial  performance. 

No  matter  how  highly  refined  a  system  of  testing  might  be 
evolved,  it  is  obvious  that  an  individual  could  be  tested  for  ability 
in  only  a  few  lines.  There  might  be  many  occupations  wherein  he 
could  reach  a  high  degree  of  proficiency  if  he  were  brought  in 
touch  with  them.  How  futile  it  is,  then,  to  postulate  a  fixity  and 
determinateness  of  fitness  for  this  or  that  occupation. 

Again,  such  postulate  is  open  to  the  criticism  that  assails  any 
doctrine  involving  a  search  for  "  types."  The  uselessness  of  the 
"  type  "  as  a  scientific  concept  has  been  repeatedly  demonstrated 
by  experiment,  and  as  a  vocational  concept  it  falls  down  completely 
before  the  simple  circumstance  that  many  persons  can  be  trained 
to  do  well  a  number  of  things. 

In  any  group  of  individuals  whose  abilities  are  arranged  according 
to  the  normal  curve  of  distribution  there  are  a  few  persons  at  the 
upper  extreme  who  fall  readily  into  the  group  of  geniuses ;  and 
the  line  of  their  probable  success  is  quite  plainly  marked.  There 
are  a  correspondingly  small  number  of  persons  at  the  lower  extreme 
whose  deficiencies  are  so  apparent  that  their  vocational  possibili- 
ties fall  within  a  rather  limited  range.  Between  these  extremes, 


106  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

however,  are  a  large  number  (approximately  50  per  cent)  who  could 
be  trained  to  do  a  large  number  of  things  equally  well.  Besides 
possessing  the  capacity  for  achievement  in  various  lines  of  endeavor, 
these  individuals  also  possess  varying  interests  and  tastes. 

INTEREST  NOT  A  RELIABLE  GUIDE 

Some  vocational  guidance  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  inter- 
est should  be  the  guiding  factor  in  determining  a  career.  Such  a 
criterion  is  very  unreliable,  as  it  happens  that  many  individuals  of 
this  intermediate  group  have  several  interests.  These  interests  are 
often  conflicting  and  of  equal  strength.  If  they  were  not,  the  indi- 
vidual would  be  able  to  make  a  choice  without  the  aid  of  a  voca- 
tional counselor.  These  persons  who  have  varied  interests  and  who 
cluster  about  the  central  tendency  in  amount  of  ability  constitute  the 
most  difficult  subjects  for  vocational  guidance.  In  attempting  to 
guide  them,  the  vocational  counselor  must  eschew  all  pretensions 
to  absolute  power  to  select,  and,  above  all,  must  remain  keenly  alive 
to  the  limitations  of  tests.  As  time  goes  on  and  education  applies 
itself  more  and  more  vigorously  to  the  preparation  of  the  child 
for  the  best  possible  future,  the  truth  of  Professor  James's  observa- 
tion becomes  increasingly  apparent :  "  However  closely  psychical 
changes  may  conform  to  law,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  individual  his- 
tories and  biographies  will  never  be  written  in  advance  no  matter 
how  '  evolved  '  psychology  may  become."  1 

Aside  from  the  technical  difficulties  involved  in  the  current 
notion  of  vocational  guidance,  there  are  considerations  of  philo- 
sophical import  that  demand  its  revision.  It  holds  the  fatalistic 
implication  that  in  the  grand  cosmic  scheme  there  is  but  one  task 
that  can  be  satisfactorily  accomplished  by  a  single  person.  It  im- 
plies that  if  one  finds  his  niche,  success  is  assured.  It  further 
implies  that  the  failures  made  by  "  misfits  "  are  due  solely  to  the 
fact  that  they  did  not  find  the  right  avenue  for  their  talents.  This 
theory,  while  embracing  the  conception  of  a  beautifully  well-ordered 
and  harmonious  universe,  leaves  out  of  account  the  factor  of  per- 
sonal volition.  It  tacitly  assumes  that  if  the  methods  of  science  be 

1  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  p.  576. 


SUGGESTIONS  TOWARD  A  TENABLE  THEORY      107 

sufficiently  refined,  one  will  be  able  to  foretell  with  practical  cer- 
tainty what  will  be  the  destiny  of  an  individual.  Such  a  program  is 
feasible  in  astronomy  where  the  course  of  fixed  and  soulless  stars 
is  concerned,  but  in  the  realm  of  human  endeavor  it  is  not  likely 
to  be  of  much  value  as  a  working  hypothesis. 

There  is  a  final  consideration  that  will  have  weight  with  all  who 
are  not  inalienably  committed  to  a  mechanistic  conception  of  the 
universe.  The  current  doctrine  fails  to  make  allowance  for  contin- 
gencies beyond  the  control  of  the  individual.  It  displays  a  cocksure- 
ness  of  the  future  that  is  at  variance  with  facts.  Circumstances  arise 
in  the  life  of  everyone  which,  even  with  the  utmost  care,  could  not 
have  been  provided  for.  Whether  one  attributes  these  to  "  chance  " 
or  to  "  the  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends,"  they  are  a  part  of  the  uni- 
verse and  must  be  reckoned  with.  The  individual  is  not  unalterably 
fixed  in  his  environment,  neither  is  society  cast  in  an  unchangeable 
mold.  Both  are  in  a  state  of  dynamic  interplay,  and  many  changes 
are  bound  to  occur  which  human  intelligence  cannot  predict. 

VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  AS  ADVICE  ONLY 

In  view  of  the  serious  objections  to  which  the  current  doctrine 
of  vocational  guidance  is  subject,  it  seems  wise  to  seek  an  amend- 
ment —  some  aim  that  is  possible  of  attainment  and  that  does  not 
depend  for  serviceableness  upon  a  subversion  of  facts.  At  this  early 
stage  of  development,  discretion  dictates  that  the  work  of  vocational 
guidance  be  regarded  as  of  purely  monitory  value.  That  is,  it  should 
pretend  to  do  nothing  further  than  to  marshal  facts  and  to  point 
out  possibilities  of  attainment  in  giving  advice.  Given  one  or  more 
vocational  preferences,  a  wealth  of  detailed  information  about  occu- 
pations, and  a  highly  refined  system  of  tests,  one  should  only 
counsel  as  follows  :  "  If  you  enter  this  particular  vocation  you  will 
be  hampered  in  this  or  that  respect,  and  you  will  have  this  or  that 
factor  in  your  favor.  If  you  have  sufficient  determination  you  can 
probably  rise  above  the  handicaps  and  attain  to  some  degree  of 
success  in  the  calling.  Science  cannot  place  a  tag  on  you  that  will 
guarantee  a  safe  journey  over  the  road  of  least  resistance  to  a 
goal  of  gratified  ambition  and  unalloyed  success." 


108  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Such  an  ideal,  while  not  possessing  the  dramatic  possibilities  of 
the  more  picturesque  "pigeonhole"  point  of  view,  nevertheless 
seems  more  becoming  as  a  working  hypothesis.  In  the  first  place, 
it  recognizes  the  fact  that  the  individual  and  society  are  dynamic, 
not  static.  Second,  it  calls  for  nothing  not  within  the  realm  of 
possibilities.  It  is  quite  possible  to  conceive  of  a  development  of 
technic  that  will  enable  one  to  give  pointed  advice  without  postu- 
lating any  mysterious  prescience.  Third,  one  who  follows  such 
an  ideal  will  be  free  from  the  suspicion  of  charlatanism  which  can 
certainly  be  urged  against  those  who,  in  order  to  tickle  the  ears 
of  a  credulous  public,  would  make  promises  beyond  the  power  of 
science  to  fulfill.  Fourth,  this  more  modest  ideal  is  free  from  the 
errors  of  a  fatalistic  philosophy.  It  postulates  no  hypothetical  "best 
way."  It  simply  takes  facts  as  it  finds  them  and  draws  conclusions 
based  on  facts  alone.  One  is  forced  to  conclude  that  the  former 
will  never  lead  to  a  scientific  vocational  guidance,  while  the  latter 
observes  the  precautions  demanded  by  scientific  method. 

A  further  advantage  which  enhances  the  attractiveness  of  this 
monitory  type  of  vocational  guidance  is  that  it  relieves  one  indi- 
vidual from  responsibility  for  another's  success  or  failure.  A  man 
of  scientific  mind  revolts  from  the  task  of  issuing  ultimate  fiats 
regarding  the  future  such  as  are  popularly  demanded.  Advice  he 
will  gladly  give.  Scientific  measurements  he  will  cheerfully  make. 
Interpretation  of  these  measurements  is  his  bounden  duty.  Further 
than  this  he  cannot  go,  and  society  should  not  ask  more. 

In  the  light  of  the  conclusions  that  follow  upon  the  premises  of 
the  current  conception  of  vocational  guidance,  its  untenability  is 
readily  apparent.  This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  educators  and 
others  should  lessen  their  zeal  in  this  direction.  Instead,  the  adop- 
tion of  this  monitory  conception  should  accelerate  the  progress  of 
true  vocational  guidance.  It  is  thoroughly  in  accord  with  the  re- 
quirements of  scientific  method  and  entirely  within  the  realm  of 
possibilities.  Positively  stated,  monitory  vocational  guidance  has 
for  its  ideal  the  granting  to  every  individual  of  the  chance  to  attain 
his  highest  efficiency  under  the  best  conditions  it  is  humanly 
possible  to  provide.  Education  can  have  no  worthier  aim,  and  the 
best  efforts  of  the  future  can  accomplish  no  more  than  this. 


NECESSITY  OF  PROFESSIONAL  TRAINING  FOR 
VOCATIONAL  COUNSELING 

BY  FREDERICK  G.  BONSER,   DIRECTOR  INDUSTRIAL  ARTS,  TEACHERS 
COLLEGE,  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 

(An  Address  delivered  at  the  Third  National  Conference  on  Vocational 
Guidance,  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan,  1913) 

Reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  the  chief  work  of  the  vocational 
counselor  is  to  deal  with  individual  persons  who  are  in  need  of 
help  in  choosing  a  life-career.  There  are,  however,  factors  in- 
volved in  doing  this  which  make  it  expedient  and  necessary  for 
him  also  to  be  no  less  a  counselor  for  the  vocations  themselves  on 
the  one  side  and  for  the  schools  on  the  other.  Of  course,  there  is 
the  great  problem  of  the  floating  population,  the  vocational  tramps, 
who  need  help  periodically  in  getting  jobs  ;  but  aid  given  them  is 
essentially  in  the  nature  of  the  employment  agent's  work.  His 
problem  is  to  know  opportunities  for  immediate  employment  and 
to  connect  the  given  job  with  a  man  who  can  do  it.  He  gives  no 
advice,  counsel,  or  information  save  only  that  necessary  to  provide 
the  employer  with  his  man,  the  man  with  his  job.  The  work  of 
the  counselor,  however,  is  concerned  much  more  with 'the  choice 
of  permanent  life  work.  He  is  therefore  dealing  with  a  problem 
that  is  fundamental  both  from  the  standpoint  of  the  individual 
seeking  his  place  in  the  world's  work  and  of  the  social  world  for 
which  his  work  is  to  be  done. 

Whether  one  who  assumes  responsibility  for  such  counsel  should 
have  professional  training  may  be  best  answered  by  noting  the 
elements  of  specific  work  which  he  is  to  do  and  the  qualifications 
required  to  do  it.  Upon  the  efficacy  of  his  counsel  depends  the 
weal  or  woe  of  many  individuals  and  the  consequent  well-being 
or  misfortune  of  the  society  these  individuals  serve. 

109 


HO  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Among  the  qualifications  which  seem  to  me  to  be  necessary  for 
successful  counseling,  I  shall  note  specifically  four  which  are  in- 
clusive of  many  minor  elements.  These  are  information,  experi- 
ence, appropriate  personality,  and  capacity  for  constructive  research. 

The  information  definitely  needed  is  of  two  types  —  that  of  the 
vocational  world  and  that  of  people.  It  is  manifestly  impossible  for 
any  one  person  to  know  the  details  of  all  of  the  several  thousand 
different  kinds  of  work  by  which  people  maintain  a  livelihood,  but 
it  is  possible  to  know  something  of  each  of  the  relatively  small 
number  of  groups  of  vocations  into  which  these  may  be  classified 
on  the  basis  of  fundamental  activities  involved.  First  of  all,  there 
>  is  the  grouping  into  the  five  large  divisions,  the  professional,  the 
commercial,  the  agricultural,  the  industrial,  and  the  household. 
Within  each  field  are  subdivisions  rather  well  defined  in  some 
particulars.  In  turn,  each  of  these  subgroups  is  divisible  into 
specific  phases  of  work,  making  a  total  of  several  thousand  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  occupation.  There  are,  however,  many  overlappings 
in  these  occupations  from  the  standpoint  of  the  activities  and  quali- 
ties required  for  efficient  service.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  know 
little  that  is  of  fundamental  character  in  the  classification  of  qualities 
for  vocational  success,  or  of  the  activities  that  are  fundamental 
in  the  vocations  themselves.  Viewed  from  this  one  standpoint  the 
hit-or-miss,  leap-in-the-dark  quality  of  advice  given  by  a  counselor 
who  does  not  even  know  the  little  now  known  and  who  has  not 
the  training  and  capacity  for  further  discovery  is  quite  apparent. 
The  fundamental  activities  involved  in  the  larger  groups  of  voca- 
tions and  their  more  important  subdivisions  the  vocational  coun- 
selor should  know  as  the  analytical  chemist  knows  the  elements, 
the  families  of  elements,  and  the  compounds  of  these  elements 
and  families  of  elements. 

The  counselor  must  know  not  only  the  more  fundamental  activi- 
ties involved  in  these  various  fields  and  the  personal  qualifications 
required  to  conduct  them,  but  he  must  also  know  the  conditions 
of  the  occupations  as  they  exist  from  time  to  time.  The  relation- 
ship between  present  and  probable  supply  and  demand,  the  relative 
wages,  and  the  changes  in  methods,  devices,  and  organization 
affecting  the  workers  must  all  be  more  or  less  at  his  immediate 


NECESSITY  OF  PROFESSIONAL  TRAINING          in 

command.  Illustrations  may  be  drawn  readily  from  the  fields  of 
farming,  commercial  work,  and  manufacture  to  show  that  new 
inventions  are  constantly  supplanting  whole  groups  of  workers, 
leaving  them  out  of  employment  and  unable  to  derive  any  help 
whatever  from  a  technical  training  which  may  have  been  developed 
only  through  a  long  and  devoted  period.  A  current  illustration  of 
this  is  clearly  evident  in  the  commercial  field.  Stenographers  have 
been  in  great  demand,  and  means  for  preparing  them  have  devel- 
oped in  response  under  both  private  and  public  auspices.  If  a 
young  man  or  woman  seems  well  adapted  to  this  field,  nothing  is 
easier  than  to  advise  attendance  upon  a  school  appropriately  fitting 
for  such  work,  assuming  that  such  a  school  exists.  But  a  disturbing 
factor  immediately  appears  when  it  is  learned  that  the  dictaphone 
has  begun  an  invasion  of  this  field  which  points  toward  the  early 
elimination  of  the  stenographers  from  perhaps  one  third  to  one  half 
of  the  offices  in  which  they  have  heretofore  been  indispensable. 

A  knowledge  of  the  initial  wages  in  the  various  occupations  is 
entirely  inadequate  for  the  purposes  of  the  counselor.  Possibilities 
for  training,  advancement,  and  increase  in  wages  are  altogether  of 
more  significance  than  are  initial  wages.  There  are  hundreds  of 
jobs  that  offer  wages  alluringly  high  for  boys  in  their  early  teens, 
1 6,  1 8,  or  even  20  cents  an  hour  ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  work 
save  the  easily  attained  maximum  of  the  20  cents  an  hour.  The 
end  of  the  "  blind  alley  "  is  reached.  When  manhood  overtakes 
the  worker  in  such  a  calling,  he  either  morosely  submits  to  a  life 
sentence  of  dulling,  monotonous  drudgery  with  all  that  this  implies, 
or  he  changes  to  some  other  occupation,  rarely  finding  one  with 
much  more  chance  of  growth  or  advancement  than  the  first.  Dis- 
satisfaction leads  him  again  to  change,  and  the  probability  is  strong 
that  he  will  soon  become  a  permanent  member  of  the  class  of 
"job  floaters"  or  "hoboes."  All  such  occupations  the  counselor 
must  know. 

The  counselor  must  likewise  know  in  which  vocations  the  capital 
for  success  lies  primarily  in  manual  skill,  and  in  which  it  is  chiefly 
a  matter  of  vocational  intelligence.  In  the  transition  from  handi- 
craft methods  of  manufacture  to  factory  and  machine  production  a 
whole  generation  of  schoolmasters  and  not  a  few  tradespeople  have 


112 

made  the  error  of  prescribing  an  effective  method  of  training  for 
an  outgrown  method  of  production  without  realizing  that  it  was 
fundamentally  defective  in  meeting  the  conditions  for  which  they 
were  presumably  preparing.  We  all  thank  God  and  progress  that 
the  day  of  handicraft  production  has  been  supplanted  by  methods 
far  more  efficient,  just  as  log  cabins,  kerosene  lamps,  hand-reaping 
machinery,  and  "  prairie  schooners  "  have  been  supplanted  by  in- 
ventions a  hundredfold  or  a  thousandfold  more  efficient.  But  the 
work  of  a  thousand  manual-training  teachers  in  this  country,  fondly 
supposing  themselves  to  be  vocational  trainers  for  present-day 
industry,  shows  how  the  factory  system  with  its  division  of  labor, 
its  machine  processes,  and  its  applied  science  has  entirely  escaped 
them.  If  these  and  the  authorities  employing  them  have  been  so 
oblivious  to  conditions  in  the  real  world  of  industry,  it  behooves 
us  to  have  a  care  that  those  counseling  young  people  about  to 
enter  such  callings  should  be  alive  to  the  world's  work  as  it  actually 
must  be  done  by  those  taking  up  its  problems.  I  count  it  a  travesty 
upon  our  schools  and  a  tragedy  for  our  boys  and  girls  that  a  num- 
ber of  large  hardware  dealers  in  New  York,  who  conduct  supply 
houses  for  the  whole  country,  carry  a  large  stock  of  goods  no 
longer  used  at  all  in  the  trades,  but  carried  to  meet  the  steady 
or  even  increasing  demand  of  the  manual-training  departments 
and  schools  of  the  country. 

The  vocational  counselor  must  also  know  people.  In  addition 
to  the  usual  meaning  which  would  attach  to  this  statement,  I  mean 
that  he  must  know  how  to  use  all  of  the  means  whereby  he  may 
be  able  to  help  the  candidate  to  discover  his  vocational  aptitudes 
and  capacities  and  make  the  adjustment  between  these  and  the 
work  appropriate  for  him.  He  must  be  able  to  make  appropriate 
use  of  the  tests  and  devices  discovered  by  psychological  research 
in  the  finding  of  individual  differences  and  abilities  ;  he  must  know 
the  bearing  upon  the  problem  of  race  and  national  peculiarities, 
traditions,  prejudices,  and  characteristics  ;  he  must  know  the  influ- 
ence of  home  and  social  settings  and  of  previous  experiences  in 
determining  motives,  ambitions,  and  ideals ;  and  he  must  know 
how  to  interpret  those  more  or  less  elusive  and  intangible  qualities 
that  go  to  make  up  the  thing  we  call  personality.  Thus  to  know 


NECESSITY  OF  PROFESSIONAL  TRAINING         113 

people  requires  at  least  three  factors  :  An  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  methods  and  values  of  making  records  and  tests,  together  with 
their  interpretation  ;  a  large  background  of  experience  in  observing 
young  people  and  workers  in  their  work,  in  their  homes,  and  in 
their  social  life  ;  and  a  high  degree  of  common  sense  or  the  ability 
to  take  the  results  of  common  observation  and  experience  and  from 
these  to  deduce  quickly  a  valid  judgment.  This  resulting  judgment 
will  seem  to  the  casual  observer  a  matter  of  intuition,  but  it  is 
rather  only  the  product  of  much  knowledge,  training,  and  experi- 
ence reduced  to  terms  by  the  instant  and  almost  unconscious 
application  of  the  expert. 

Besides  this  crystalized  experience,  the  counselor  must  be 
characterized  by  tact,  decision,  and  unbounded  human  sympathy. 
He  is  to  give  advice,  not  orders.  The  candidate  is  to  act  as  a 
free  person,  following  counsel  because  of  the  appeal  it  makes 
to  his  ambition  and  sense  of  worth,  not  because  of  any  sense 
of  compulsion. 

As  a  final  qualification,  I  would  add  that  of  capacity  for  construc- 
tive research.  Since  human  life,  and  notably  vocational  life,  is  in 
a  state  of  constant  change,  the  vocational  counselor  must  be  capable 
of  making  or  of  directing  such  lines  of  research  and  investigation 
as  will  insure  his  progressive  familiarity  with  those  changes  to 
which  adjustments  of  workers  must  be  made.  Furthermore,  in  our 
present  state  of  poverty  of  knowledge  relative  to  questions  of  fun- 
damental importance  in  the  classification  of  vocations  and  of  the 
means  for  determining  vocational  aptitudes,  the  counselor  will  have 
the  pressing  problem  of  initiating  means  of  inquiry  which  will  help 
to  supply  this  much-needed  information. 

The  relation  of  the  counselor  to  the  schools  is  of  paramount 
importance.  The  needed  changes  revealed  by  his  work  must  be 
wrought  through  the  schools.  When  he  looks  at  the  conditions  and 
needs  of  vocational  life  on  the  one  hand  and  at  the  pitiable  empti- 
ness of  the  schools  with  reference  to  these  needs  on  the  other,  his 
spirit  must  indeed  be  courageous  and  heroic,  or  it  will  shrink  from 
a  task  that  looks  almost  insuperable.  Besides  his  own  experiences, 
he  reads  in  one  of  the  most  recent  studies  of  the  vocations  entered 
by  children  between  14  and  16,  based  upon  4386  St.  Louis  cases, 


114  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

that  about  90  per  cent  entered  unskilled  occupations ;  about  7  per 
cent,  low-grade  skilled  occupations ;  and  less  than  3  per  cent, 
high-grade  skilled  occupations  ;  that  over  70  per  cent  of  these  chil- 
dren entered  occupations  demanding  merely  fetching  and  carrying 
"blind  alleys"  in  almost  every  case.  Turning  to  the  Massa- 
chusetts study  of  1906,  the  New  York  study  of  1911-1912,  the 
Cincinnati  studies  still  in  progress,  the  Philadelphia  study  of 
1912-1913,  and  to  any  others  available,  he  finds  this  condition 
approximately  true  for  the  country  at  large.  He  reads  that  Charles 
H.  Ludington,  of  the  Curtis  Publishing  Co.,  Philadelphia,  recently 
stated  that : 

Seventy-five  applicants  were  interviewed  for  a  recent  vacancy  in  our  typist 
force.  At  least  50  were  obviously  unfitted,  and  about  25  were  tested  before 
one  competent  worker  was  secured.  To  fill  the  position  of  correspondent,  it  is 
necessary  for  the  Curtis  Publishing  Co.  to  interview  from  10  to  50  persons; 
to  find  a  stenographer,  15  to  25  ;  a  typist,  25  to  50  ;  a  high-grade  clerk,  20  to 
25  ;  an  ordinary  clerk,  10  to  15.  Whenever  it  is  necessary  to  secure  operators 
for  our  office  appliances,  which  are  generally  used  throughout  the  commercial 
world,  we  are  obliged  in  90  per  cent  of  the  cases  to  train  them  ourselves. 

From  these  conditions  in  the  vocations  the  counselor  looks  back 
to  the  schools.  What  are  they  doing  about  it  all  ?  Armies  of  chil- 
dren are  dropping  out,  largely  because  the  work  makes  no  appeal 
of  appreciable  worth  to  them  or  their  parents  ;  occupations  offering 
opportunity  for  growth  and  progress  will  not  have  them  until  they 
are  16.  Counseling  100  children  to.  enter  vocations  that  will  take 
but  3  is  as  foolish  as  it  is  vain  ;  counseling  them  to  go  back  to  the 
schools  from  which  they  came  is  almost  as  foolish  and  usually  quite 
as  vain.  To  counsel  the  child  to  make  the  most  of  the  occupation 
possible  as  a  temporary  measure  and  to  take  up  part-time  school 
work  for  entrance  into  an  occupation  that  is  more  desirable  when 
adequate  maturity  is  reached  appeals  to  the  counselor  as  the  most 
hopeful  solution.  But  here  arises  the  stone  wall  of  ancient  tradi- 
tion, manned  by  the  guns  of  academic  schoolmasters  and  political 
boards  of  education,  backed  by  a  quiescent  public  opinion.  The 
counselor  realizes  that  in  most  communities  there  are  no  schools, 
there  is  no  school  work  which  his  honest  conscience  will  permit 
him  to  advise  as  meeting  the  need.  How  long  must  this  army  of 


NECESSITY  OF  PROFESSIONAL  TRAINING          115 

ambitious,  capable  boys  and  girls  be  allowed  to  go  to  the  scrap  heap 
of  adult  inefficiency,  disappointment,  and  too  often  of  pauperism 
and  crime  ?  How  long  must  this  army  of  tens  of  thousands  ask  for 
the  bread  of  real,  present-day  life,  of  opportunity  to  prepare  for 
gaining  an  adequate,  respectable,  and  efficient  living  and  citizen- 
ship, and  be  given  the  stones  of  academic  gymnastics  ? 

It  is  my  faith  that  the  vocational  counselor,  properly  trained, 
will  become  the  great  force  for  bridging  this  gap  between  the 
vocational  world  and  the  schools.  Timely,  tactful,  and,  most  of 
all,  intelligent  appeals  to  employers  and  school  people  (boards 
of  education,  superintendents,  and  teachers),  revelation  to  them 
of  facts,  needs,  and  plans,  should  certainly  be  one  of  the  most 
effective  and.  far-reaching  duties  of  the  vocational  counselor.  To 
be  sure,  his  immediate  problem  is  partly  an  emergency  problem  — 
to  do  all  that  he  possibly  can  to  meet  the  specific  needs  of  the 
individual  candidates  whom  he  is  trying  to  aid.  But  if  his  work 
does  not  reach  far  enough  into  the  vocational  world,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  into  the  schools  on  the  other,  to  better  conditions  in 
both,  to  bring  them  closer  together,  and  largely  to  remove  the 
causes  producing  the  emergency,  then  his  efforts  are  just  so  much 
short  of  adequate  success. 

Can  the  vocational  counselor  achieve  the  success  for  which  his 
position  is  established  without  professional  training  ?  In  considering 
the  problems  of  the  counselor  and  the  means  and  qualifications  for 
meeting  these  problems,  it  seems  to  me  that  professional  training 
is  implied  as  essential  at  every  point.  His  work  is  not  a  matter  of 
a  card-filing  cabinet  nor  of  the  mere  memory  of  facts.  It  is  a  work 
requiring  trained  judgment,  intelligence  trained  to  see  the  crucial 
point  in  a  mass  of  complex  data,  a  broad  and  intensive  grasp  of 
many  complex  social  and  psychological  situations,  and  rigid  train- 
ing in  the  accurate  interpretation  of  facts,  conditions,  and  human 
qualities.  Efficiency  in  -these  activities  does  not  come  by  intuition 
alone  nor  by  casual  experience  alone.  Although  every  day's  work 
of  the  counselor  will  be  an  asset  in  the  work  of  the  days  following, 
training  in  every  phase  of  the  problem  for  which  provision  can  be 
made  will  aid  in  eliminating  waste  from  the  beginning.  It  will  save 
many  a  worker  who  would  probably  be  wrecked  on  the  rocks  of 


Il6  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

misdirection.  The  problem  comprehends  the  well-being  of  indi- 
viduals, of  vocations,  of  the  school,  and  of  society  at  large.  For 
this  significant  work  let  us  have  men  and  women  of  the  best  possi- 
ble professional  training,  that  their  efficiency  may  be  in  proportion 
to  their  responsibilities. 


PART  II.   THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF 
VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

BRIEFS  OF  PAPERS  ON  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

(Read  at  the  meeting  of  the  Boston  Masters'  Association,  Tuesday, 
November  12,  1912) 

I.  FROM  THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  ITS  APPLICATION  TO 
GIRLS  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOLS 

BY  ELEANOR  M.  COLLETON,  HANCOCK  DISTRICT 
Subject  of  Investigation  in  Hancock  and  Dillaivay  Schools 

(a)  Graduates  of  June,  1911. 

(£)  Girls  fourteen  years  of  age  or  over  who  left  between  Sep- 
tember, 1911,  and  June,  1912. 

Purpose  of  Investigation 

(a) 

1 .  How  many  of  the  graduates  continued  to  attend  school  ? 

2.  What  schools  ? 

3.  What  vocational  intent  entered  into  their  decision  to  attend 
a  given  school  ? 

4.  How  many  persevered  to  the  end  of  the  school  year  in 
attendance  ? 

5.  How  many  left  school  during  the  year  and  why  ? 

6.  How  many  of  the  graduates  went  to  work  after  graduation  ? 
Kind  of  work  ? 

7.  How  many  remained  at  home  and  why  ? 

117 


Il8 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


(b) 

1.  The  reason  or  reasons  for  leaving  school,  special  reference 
being  made  to  the  number  who  left  school  to  go  to  work  and  to 
what  extent  actual  poverty  of  the  family  was  the  cause  ? 

2.  The  occupation  entered  and  why  ? 

(a]  How  obtained  ?    Vocational  plan  ? 

(b)  Wages? 

(c]  Length  of  employment  ? 

(d)  Changes  of  employment  ? 
(  e  )  Causes  for  change  ? 

(/)  Chances  for  advancement  ? 


Hancock  School : 
(«) 


Nrimber  in  Groups  studied 


105        176 


Dillaway  School  : 

(*)'.    .    .    . 


101 

54 


Total 


Study  of  Graduates 


GRADUATED 

ENTERED 
HIGH 

LEFT  HIGH 

SINCE 

STILL  IN 
HIGH 

Dillaway    

IOI 

65 

8 

C7 

Hancock  

71 

•37 

7 

"JQ 

Vocations  desired  by  Graduates 

The  majority  of  the  Hancock  graduates  who  entered  high 
school  had  a  plan  more  or  less  definite  to  enter  some  form  of 
commercial  life,  while  the  plans  of  the  graduates  of  the  Dillaway 
School  were  more  varied,  comprising  plans  to  be  teachers,  private 
secretaries,  telephone  operators,  nurses,  sewing  teachers,  dress- 
makers, as  well  as  stenographers  and  bookkeepers. 


BRIEFS  OF  PAPERS  ON  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE     119 

Girls  who  went  to  Work  and  their  Opportunities 

There  was  little  or  no  difference  in  the  occupations  open  to  the 
girls  who  graduated  and  those  who  left  before  graduating.  The 
principal  places  open  to  them  were  in  the  department  stores  as 
bundle  girls  at  $2.50  to  $3.50  ;  in  the  factories  at  $3  to  $4  ;  in 
stores  as  salesgirls  at  $5  ;  in  tailors'  shops  at  $2.50  to  $3.50. 

•Needless  to  state,  after  the  first  glamour  of  working  has  worn 
off,  the  girls  tire  and  leave  such  work,  or  the  season  becomes 
dull  and  they  are  laid  off  temporarily  or  permanently,  according  as 
they  seem  more  or  less  desirable  to  their  employers. 

Reasons  for  leaving  School 

The  proportion  of  girls  forced  by  financial  circumstances  to  leave 
school  was  comparatively  small.  Being  backward  in  their  grades, 
dislike  of  school,  desire  for  a  change,  desire  to  be  with  friends  who 
were  working,  were  principal  reasons. 

Parents  Attitude  toward  Vocational  Guidance 

On  our  cards  there  was  no  item  to  be  filled  out  in  regard  to 
parents'  comments  on  the  results  of  training  in  the  elementary 
schools.  Nevertheless,  there  have  been  certain  observations  made 
so  repeatedly  that  I  state  them  here. 

1.  A  comment  as  to  the  inability  of  the  girls  to  write  well- 
phrased,   correctly    spelled   letters  when   there   was    personal  or 
family  need. 

2.  A  comment  as  to  the  inaccuracy  shown  in  anything  calling 
for  mathematical   knowledge,   as    exemplified   when    parents    re- 
quested help  of  girls  in  adjusting  accounts  with  stores,  insurance 
agents,  etc. 

3.  A  criticism  of  the  lack  of  practical  value  of  sewing  as  it  is 
taught  in  the  schools.    This  was  a  lament,  a  wail  of  many.    "  I 
don't  expect  the  girl  to  learn  the  dressmaking  trade,  but  if  she 
were  only  taught  to  use  a  pattern,  how  much  she  could  help  me 
with  the  younger  children's  clothes  and  what  a  saving  it  would  be." 
"  If  the  girl  could  only  do  some  by  herself  without  waiting  for  the 
teacher  to  tell  her  what  to  do  next,  what  a  help  she  would  be  to  me. 


120  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

She  has  brought  home  a  garment  which  she  says  she  made,  but 
when  I  have  given  her  cloth  to  do  the  same  at  home  she  can 
do  nothing." 

Parents  Knowledge  of  Vocational  Opportunities 

It  was  most  pathetic  to  see  how  little  the  parents  knew  of  the 
real  industrial  conditions  and  of  what  educational  and  vocational 
opportunities,  entirely  within  their  reach,  existed  in  Boston.  This 
was  true  in  far,  far  larger  extent  of  the  parents  of  girls  who  left 
school  in  the  grades  than  of  those  who  graduated.  This  was  due 
doubtless  to  the  fact  that  the  graduating  classes  have  been  given 
talks  along  these  lines  and,  even  if  the  parents  did  not  attend 
conferences  given  by  schools  and  associations,  they  have  gleaned 
some  knowledge  from  the  girls  when  they  did  not  have  personal 
knowledge. 

Deductions 

My  experience  has  been  that  the  vast  majority  of  the  parents  of 
the  girls  in  the  study  just  completed  knew  nothing  except  what 
they  had  obtained  through  the  school  as  to  the  various  high  schools 
and  their  specialties  —  the  Trade  and  Industrial  Schools  —  the 
necessity  of  extra  training  and  preparation  to  enter  any  occupation 
in  which  there  were  chances  for  advancement.  The  attitude  of 
the  parents  when  visited  in  the  homes  made  it  appear  only  too 
clear  that  practically  all  would  welcome  such  guidance  and  avail 
themselves  of  it. 

What  should  the  girl  do  when  she  is  fourteen  years  ? 

What  is  open  for  her  to  do  according  to  her  physical  and 
mental  indications,  tastes,  and  desires  ? 

What  schools  or  courses  must  prepare  her  ? 

What  are  her  obstacles  ? 

Do  girl  and  parent  know  the  future  of  most  girls  who  enter  in- 
dustrial life  without  further  preparation  than  the  elementary-school 
training,  unless,  perhaps,  they  enter  an  establishment  which  is  in 
cooperation  with  a  continuation  school  ? 

What  are  the  local  recreation  centers,  settlement  house,  etc., 
which  can  safely  be  recommended  to  mothers  as  places  to  which 


BRIEFS  OF  PAPERS  ON  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE     121 

their  girls  may  turn  for  recreation,  which  is  as  necessary  for  youth 
as  food  and  clothing  ? 

What  are  the  evening  vocational  advantages  of  schools  and 
classes  locally  situated,  likewise  of  those  situated  throughout  the 
city,  to  which  a  girl  may  have  access  with  profit  to  herself  ? 

What  are  the  reactions  of  individual  occupations  or  industries 
which  make  or  unmake  a  girl  for  future  good  womanhood,  physical 
and  moral  ? 

This  is  what  vocational  guidance  means,  and  is,  to  my  mind,  a 
work  the  elementary  school  should  take  up  and  at  once. 


II.    FROM  THE  VIEWPOINT  OF  ITS  APPLICATION  TO 
BOYS  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOLS 

BY  WILLIAM  T.  MILLER,  AGASSIZ  DISTRICT 

Let  me  explain  briefly  just  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  real  pur- 
pose and  aim  of  the  vocational-guidance  movement.  Misconcep- 
tions as  to  the  real  meaning  of  guidance  have  brought  much 
unjust  and  adverse  criticism  on  the  movement.  In  its  only  de- 
fensible sense  vocational  guidance  as  a  school  activity  means  lead- 
ing the  boy  (and  parent)  to  study  his  own  ability  and  desires,  and 
to  weigh  the  requirements,  opportunities,  and  rewards  of  various 
occupations,  all  with  the  aim  that  he  may  sometime  choose, 
freely  and  wisely,  some  line  of  work  suitable  to  his  inclinations 
and  aptitudes.  It  does  not  mean  dictating  the  kind  of  occupation 
a  boy  shall  enter  or  arbitrarily  placing  him  in  a  job.  That  would 
be  vocational  compulsion  and  would  destroy  the  initiative  on  which 
much  of  a  boy's  success  depends.  It  is  not  even  hoped  that  the 
elementary-school  graduate  will  be  able  by  means  of  guidance  to 
select  his  life  work.  The  fourteen-year  or  sixteen-year  old  boy  is  too 
young,  except  in  rare  cases,  to  choose  a  life-career ;  but  he  is  not 
too  young  to  begin  to  think  about  the  need  of  sometime  choosing 
a  permanent  calling  and  to  get  some  ideas  about  his  own  traits 
and  real  desires.  He  can  also  choose  more  intelligently  between 
different  jobs  as  they  may  offer  themselves  to  him  and  begin  to 


122  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

prepare  himself  for  a  future  decision  that  will  be  wiser  and  more 
permanent  than  if  he  had  never  thought  of  the  meaning  of  voca- 
tional choice.  Such  teaching  will  help  to  give  the  boy  a  more 
serious  view  of  life,  and  the  thought  of  some  future  use  will  give 
a  stronger  motive  for  study  and  for  the  development  of  general 
good  character.  Another  common  misconception  is  that  vocational 
guidance  will  tend  to  drive  the  boy  out  of  school  by  encouraging 
him  to  go  to  work.  True  guidance  will  have  just  the  opposite 
effect,  by  emphasizing  the  value  of  training  in  all  occupations,  and 
suggesting  the  definite  schools  and  courses  that  will  prepare  for 
given  vocational  desires.  A  third  great  concern  of  the  vocational- 
guidance  movement  is  the  boys  who  leave  to  go  to  work.  Instead 
of  being  set  adrift  as  they  now  are,  they  should  be  followed  up, 
records  kept  of  their  progress,  adyice  and  encouragement  given 
when  necessary,  and  a  constant  effort  made  to  promote  the  edu- 
cational improvement  of  those  who  must  work  early  in  life. 
I  studied 

1 .  Number,  ages,  grades  of  boys  leaving  school  to  work. 

2.  Reasons  for  leaving. 

3.  Extent  to  which  any  vocational  choice  was  manifested. 

4.  Earnings  and  kinds  of  work  done. 

5.  Causes  of  success  and  failure. 

6.  Educational  needs. 

7.  Possibility  and  limit  of  vocational  guidance  as  school  activity. 
You  will  perhaps  be  more  interested  in  general  conclusions  than 

specific  details.  My  investigation  was  made  in  the  Wendell  Phillips 
and  Agassiz  Districts,  giving  a  geographical,  racial,  and  industrial 
contrast.  My  figures  will  be  totals  from  these  two  schools  com- 
bined, unless  otherwise  mentioned.  It  included  boys  leaving  to 
work  during  1911  and  1912  and  the  graduates  of  1911. 

Taking  the  whole  number  of  boys  fourteen  years  of  age  or  over 
who  were  in  school  during  the  year,  I  found  of  522  who  were 
eligible  to  get  certificates,  112,  or  21  per  cent,  did  go  to  work 
during  the  year,  representing  over  one-fifth  loss  from  the  schools 
by  premature  leaving.  Of  the  graduates  of  1911,  28  per  cent 
went  into  work  and  7  per  cent  left  high  school  to  work  during  the 
year.  Only  60  per  cent  finished  first-year  high  school. 


BRIEFS  OF  PAPERS  ON  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE     123 

As  to  ages  of  leaving,  62  per  cent  left  between  fourteen  and 
fifteen  and  44  per  cent  before  fourteen  and  a  half ;  62  per  cent 
left  at  or  below  sixth  grade  and  2  5  per  cent  in  fifth  and  lower ; 
1 6  boys  left  in  seventh  or  lower  above  age  of  sixteen. 

Reasons  for  leaving  School 

A  careful  study  of  family  income  and  expenditures  was  made 
and  I  feel  that  I  got  reasonably  close  to  the  real  conditions. 

In  cases  of  doubt  the  benefit  was  given  to  the  family,  so  that 
I  am  certain  that  there  is  no  exaggeration  in  these  percentages 
for  two  districts  : 

Left  on  account  of  necessity 30  per  cent 

Left  on  account  of  desire  for  profit i  o  per  cent 

Dissatisfied  with  school 35  per  cent 

Preference  for  work,  and  in  case  of  graduating  not 

going  to  high  school 25  per  cent 

Necessity 17  per  cent 

Profit 1 8  per  cent 

Preference  for  work 65  per  cent 

A  considerable  number  of  nongraduates  leave  to  give  their 
whole  time  to  selling  papers,  distinctly  a  bad  practice.  In  the 
cases  of  graduates  there  is  much  less  of  this  and  more  entrance 
into  skilled  trades.  The  average  time  in  a  position  for  the  non- 
graduate  was  seven  weeks,  for  a  graduate  eighteen  weeks,  showing 
greater  shifting  among  the  nongraduates.  The  nongraduates  going 
to  work  averaged  3.55  per  cent  in  first  position,  the  graduates 
averaged  4.11  per  cent.  The  average  wage  during  eleven  months 
for  all  nongraduates  was  $4.26,  for  graduates  $4.64,  and  most  of 
the  graduates  had  some  prospects  of  advancement. 

The  work  of  the  counselors  with  the  graduating  class  should 
consist  generally  of  individual  private  interviews  with  the  pupils, 
with  a  view  to  getting  at  their  vocational  ideas  and  encouraging 
them  to  think  about  the  problem  seriously.  As  a  necessary  prel- 
ude some  talks  should  be  given  to  the  class  on  the  fundamental 
meaning  of  vocation  and  the  elements  involved  in  any  choice.  As 


124  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

part  of  the  English  work  a  theme  on  choosing  a  vocation  will  stim- 
ulate thought  on  the  matter.  The  different  types  of  high  schools 
will  of  course  demand  some  of  the  counselors'  attention.  As  far 
as  possible  the  counselor  should  find  an  opportunity,  by  special 
invitation,  to  talk  with  the  parents  of  the  pupils,  so  as  to  get  their 
knowledge  of  the  boy's  characteristics,  desires,  and  limitations. 

At  present  the  counselors  seldom  take  any  notice  of  the  boys 
leaving  to  work  without  graduating.  If  the  counselor  can  get  a 
free  hour  a  week  he  can  interview  some  of  these  cases.  A  school 
regulation  can  be  made,  that  to  get  a  working  certificate  a  boy  must 
apply  at  least  one  week  ahead.  Then  a  definite  day  each  week  may 
be  set  aside  as  the  only  time  when  certificate  applications  will  be 
made  out.  On  this  day  those  wishing  to  leave  can  tell  their  stories  to 
the  counselor.  They  should  be  required  to  have  one  parent  with  them. 
Much  good  might  be  done  at  such  interviews  and  possible  means  sug- 
gested to  prolong  the  boy's  school  life.  Advice  can  then  be  given 
as  to  schools  suited  to  the  boy's  needs,  and  a  postcard  can  be  sup- 
plied to  the  boy  on  which  he  is  to  report  two  weeks  after  he  has  left 
as  to  whether  he  is  still  at  work  and  has  entered  evening  school. 

I  realize  that  all  these  things  demand  time  and  energy,  and  we 
can't  do  all  of  them.  But  we  can  all  do  something,  and  at  least 
can  preach  at  every  opportunity  the  wholesome  doctrine  that 
"  blessed  is  he  who  has  found  his  work  and  does  it,"  and  that  the 
"  boy  who  works  and  learns  is  the  man  who  succeeds  and  earns." 

III.   A  PLAN  FOR  VOCATIONAL  INSTRUCTION  ON 
A  SMALL  SCALE 

BY  LAURA  F.  WENTWORTH,  HIGH  SCHOOL  OF  PRACTICAL  ARTS 

I.  General  outline  of  methods  of  procedure. 

1 .  Course  for  teachers. 

To  train  them  so  that  they  may  in  turn  give  a 

2.  Course  for  pupils. 

The  reports  of  the  children  at  home  will  cause  a 
demand  for 

3.  Course  for  parents. 


BRIEFS  OF  PAPERS  ON  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE     125 

II.  Number  of  people  required  to  conduct  this  work. 

1.  One  person  to  plan  courses  and  provide  speakers. 

2.  Two  vocational  counselors  in  each  elementary  and 

high  school  and  the  master. 
III.  Detailed  plan  of  courses  mentioned  above. 

1.  Course  for  teachers  (two  meetings  a  month). 

a.  Subjects  treated  in  course. 

(1)  Vocations  open  to  boys  and  girls. 

(a)  Advantages. 

(b)  Disadvantages. 

(c)  Location  of  specific  firms. 

(2)  Schools  (public  and  private)  which  fit  for 

vocations  discussed. 

(3)  How  and  where   to  obtain   a   working 

certificate. 

(4)  How  to  apply  for  a  position. 

(a)  In  person. 
(b}   By  letter. 

(5)  What    an     employer     expects     of    an 

employee. 

b.  Talks  from  time  to  time  on  : 

(1)  Literature  on  vocational  subjects. 

(2)  Meetings  to  be  held  in  or  near  Boston 

dealing  with  vocational  problems. 

(3)  Work  in  other  cities  in  United  States 

and  other  countries  along  the  voca- 
tional line. 

(4)  Recreational   opportunities   in   different 

districts  of  city. 

c.  Visits  by  groups  to  the  industries  and  schools 

discussed. 

d.  At  least  one  exhibition  at  the  Bijou  Dream 

of  the  moving  pictures  illustrating  indus- 
tries, etc. 

2.  Course   for   pupils    (in    individual    schools    once    a 

week). 
a.  The  groups  of  children. 


126  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

(1)  All  below  eighth  grade  who  are  thirteen 

years  or  over. 

(2)  The  graduating  class. 

(3)  In  high  schools  —  graduating  class  (and 

those  in  other  classes  who  indicate 
intention  of  leaving). 
b.  Nature  of  work  with  children. 

(i)  Train  pupils  to  know  themselves  in  re- 
gard to 

(a)  Characteristics  of  importance  to 
success :  Punctuality,  interest, 
responsibility,  etc. 

(b}  Personal  appearance  as  necessary 
to    success :    Neatness,    clean 
ness,  etc. 

(2)  Reproduction  of  talks  on  vocations. 

(3)  Reproduction  of  talks  on  schools  fitting 

for  these. 

(4)  Visits  to  industries  and  schools. 

(5)  How  to  obtain  a  working  certificate. 

(a)  A  placard    should   be  hung  in 

every  schoolroom  where  chil- 
dren are  over  thirteen  years, 
telling  three  things  required 
to  obtain  working  certificate 
and  where  to  obtain  this 
certificate. 

(b)  The    children    should    also    be 

shown  samples  of  birth  cer- 
tificate, employer's  ticket,  and 
school-attendance  record,  and 
working  certificate  so  that  they 
will  know  what  to  expect  when 
asking  for  same. 

(6)  How  to  apply  for  position. 

(a)  In  person. 

(b)  By  letter. 


BRIEFS  OF  PAPERS  ON  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE     127 

(7)  What  employer  expects  of  employee. 

(8)  Talks  on  health  and  danger  in  indus- 

trial world. 

(9)  In    some    districts    arrangements    can 

be  made  with  local  moving-picture 
theaters  to  show  films  illustrating 
various  industries,  etc. 
(10)  Suggestions  as  to  recreations,  etc. 

Settlement  houses,  recreation  centers. 
3.  Course  for  parents. 

a.  Circular  letter  to  parents  of  all  children  over 

thirteen  years  of  age  emphasizing  : 

(1)  Desirability  of  a  skilled  trade  with  low 

wages  at  the  outset  rather  than  a 
fair  beginning  wage  with  no  pros- 
pect of  advancement. 

(2)  Desirability  of  future  training  in  some 

special  school. 

(3)  Necessity  for  care  of  child's  health. 

(4)  Necessity  for  watching  the   recreation 

of  child. 

Speakers  to  be  furnished  by  Central  Office  if  desired 

b.  Talks    (in    evenings   at    school    buildings)    on 

vocations. 

c.  Talks  on  schools  training  for  these  vocations. 

d.  Talks  on  how  to  obtain  working  certificate. 

e.  Talks  on  health  and  danger  in  industry. 

f.  Talks  on  different  forms  of  recreation  offered. 

g.  Utilizing  moving-picture  theaters    in    districts 

for  showing  industries,  etc. 

In  the  foregoing  courses  the  burden  of  the  work  comes  on  the 
vocational  counselors,  who  should  be  allowed  a  sufficient  amount  of 
free  time  to  carry  on  the  talks. 


128  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Vocational  Guidance  in  High  School 

The  work  in  vocational  guidance  in  High  School  of  Practical  Arts 
resolves  itself  into  five  definite  lines  : 

I.  Helping  girls  to  choose  industrial  course.   By  talks  to  girls 
and  circular  letter  to  parents. 

1 .  According  to  natural  ability. 

2.  According  to  work  intend  to  do  on  graduating. 
II.  Home  visiting. 

III.  Giving  talks  to  girls  in  fourth  year. 

1 .  About  higher  schools. 

2.  About  occupation  allied  to  those  taught. 

3.  About  trade  conditions. 

IV.  Placing  girls. 

1 .  Graduates.    Higher  schools  and  trade  schools. 

2.  Undergraduates  who  drop  out.    Trade  schools. 

3.  Undergraduates  out  of  school  hours.    Trade  schools. 
V.  Following  up  graduates. 

1 .  By  system  of  reporting  by  mail. 

2.  By  visits  to  employers. 

3.  By  alumnae  association. 

Summary 

The  work  of  the  vocational  assistant  is  one  of  adjustment. 

1.  Of  girls  to  right  course  in  school. 

2.  Of  girls  to  right  course  after  leaving  school. 

3.  Of  home  to  school  and  school  to  business  life. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  CINCINNATI 
By  FRANK  P.  GOODWIN 

(An  Address  before  the  Ohio  State  High  School  Teachers'  Association  at 
Columbus,  Ohio,  December  29,  1913) 

In  response  to  a  demand  caused  by  changed  industrial  condi- 
tions, vocational  education  has  become  an  important  part  of  our 
public-school  system ;  our  high-school  courses  are,  in  a  great 
measure,  organized  in  accordance  with  the  vocational  idea,  and 
vocational  or  prevocational  education  for  children  who  will  not  go 
to  high  school  will  soon  become  an  essential  part  of  the  work  of 
our  educational  system.  This  introduction  of  vocational  courses, 
combined  with  the  complexity  of  modern  vocational  life,  has  forced 
upon  us  the  necessity  of  attempting  some  direction  of  students  in 
their  choice  of  a  life-career  and  in  their  preparation  for  the  same. 

As  a  result,  the  vocational-guidance  movement,  beginning 
almost  simultaneously  in  at  least  two  Eastern  cities,  has  spread 
throughout  the  United  States ;  and  to-day  numerous  city  school 
systems  are  attempting  work  of  this  character  or  are  studying  it 
with  a  view  to  its  adoption.  It  has  been  introduced  into  about 
twenty  elementary  schools  of  Cincinnati  and  has  undergone  a 
considerable  development  in  one  Cincinnati  high  school. 

The  movement  had  not  advanced  far  in  Cincinnati  before  our 
teachers  realized  that  vocational  guidance  should  be  an  educational 
process,  and  that  the  life-career  motive  should  be  used  as  a  means 
for  prolonging  the  period  of  school  life. 

With  us  as  in  most  city  school  systems  it  presents  two  distinct 
problems,  differentiated  by  two  classes  of  pupils  : 

1.  The  elementary-school  child  who  will  not  go  to  high  school. 

2.  The  student  who  takes  or  expects  to  take  a  high-school 
course. 

129 


130  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  latter  group  will  include  both  eighth-grade  and  high-school 
children. 

In  regard  to  the  former  group,  there  is  a  general  agreement 
among  those  who  have  investigated  the  subject  that  but  little  can 
be  done  for  those  pupils,  except  as  prevocational  training,  manual 
in  character,  is  introduced  into  the  elementary  school.  This  has 
been  substantiated  by  the  Chicago  City  Club  Survey,  under  the 
direction  of  Professor  Mead ;  by  the  New  York  Survey,  under 
Miss  Barrows ;  and  by  the  Cincinnati  Work  Certificate  Office, 
under  Mrs.  Woolley.  Numerous  cities,  including  Cincinnati,  acting 
upon  this  idea,  have  established  schools  of  this  character.  Already 
we  have  made  a  beginning  in  eight  schools,  but  it  remains  to 
work  out  a  plan  of  analysis  and  guidance  for  these  children. 

The  second  problem,  that  of  the  child  who  expects  to  take  a 
high-school  course,  is  easier  of  approach,  and  perhaps  much  easier 
of  solution.  It  is  to  this  phase  of  vocational  guidance  that  this 
paper  is  chiefly  devoted.  In  this  work,  we  are  endeavoring  to 
have  the  child  select  his  high-school  course  on  the  basis  of  the 
life-career  motive,  and  to  use  that  motive  as  the  impelling  purpose 
which  will  keep  him  in  school  until  graduation  if  possible.  This 
supposes  that  he  will  endeavor  to  select  that  high-school  course 
for  which  he  is  best  adapted,  and  which  will  be  of  greatest  value 
in  the  preparation  for  the  vocation  of  his  choice.  It  does  not  neces- 
sarily follow,  however,  that  the  eighth-grade  child's  choice  of  a 
high-school  course  or  his  choice  of  a  vocation  will  be  final.  In 
fact,  the  whole  high-school  period  is  distinctly  a  formative  one,  and 
the  child  should  be  permitted  to  change  his  vocational  motive  and 
also  his  high-school  course  as  often  as  good  reason  can  be  shown 
for  such  change.  But  this  must  not  be  understood  to  encourage 
vacillation  or  indecision.  The  importance  of  such  a  principle  of 
selection  is  apparent  when  we  consider  that  the  child  has  nine 
high-school  courses  based  in  a  considerable  degree  upon  the 
vocational  idea  from  which  to  select. 

The  activities  connected  with  this  work  in  the  eighth  grade  and 
in  the  high  school  present  the  three  phases  which  are  general  to 
the  problem. 

i .  A  study  of  the  personal  characteristics  of  each  pupil. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  CINCINNATI  131 

2.  A  study  on  the  part  of  the  pupil  of  the  opportunities  and 
conditions  of  a  variety  of  vocations. 

3 .  The  adaptation  of  the  school  work  to  the  vocational  needs  of 
the  pupil  and  of  the  community. 

STUDY  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

The  study  of  the  personal  element  should  begin  with  the  eighth 
grade  and  continue  throughout  the  high-school  course.  It  should 
be  done  in  a  systematic  manner,  but  not  without  that  sympathetic 
interest  characteristic  of  the  true  teacher.  The  plan  is  to  schedule 
and  record  on  guidance  record  cards  those  general  characteristics 
which  influence  the  vocational  success  or  failure  of  the  individual. 
The  schedule  for  the  eighth  grade  is  as  follows  : 

VOCATIONAL  RECORD  CARD  EIGHTH  GRADE 

Name  School 

Date  of  birth  Nationality 

Parent's  name  Residence 

1.  Health  and  physical  characteristics  (from  the  physician) ;  height,  weight; 
sense  organs  :  eyes,  ears. 

2.  Powers  of  observation  :  good,  medium,  poor. 

3.  Memory  :  good,  medium,  poor. 

4.  Attention  :  good,  medium,  poor. 

5.  Association :    rapid  mental  coordination,  medium  rate    of   coordination, 
slow  mental  coordination. 

6.  Type  of  activity  :  deliberate,  impulsive,  neither. 

7.  Intellectual  ability:  good,  medium,  poor. 

8.  Manual  ability  (domestic-science  or  manual-training  teacher) :  good,  me- 
dium, poor. 

9.  Social  leadership  :  well  developed,  moderate,  absent  (a  follower). 

10.  Perseverance  :  good,  medium,  poor. 

11.  Habits  of  promptness:  good,  medium,  poor. 

12.  Studies:  preferences,  successes,  dislikes,  failures. 

13.  Vocation  of  parents. 

14.  Which  high-school  course  ? 

15.  What  vocation  has  the  child  in  mind  ? 

The  schedule  for  the  high  school  varies  but  little  from  the  above. 

In  recording  these  judgments  concerning  the  student,  the  type 
of  observation,  attention,  memory,  manual  activity,  etc.  should  be 
indicated.  For  example,  a  person  may  have  a  good  memory  for 


132  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

verse  but  a  poor  memory  for  music ;  another  may  have  a  poor 
verbal  memory  but  a  good  memory  for  a  logically  arranged  group 
of  facts  ;  an  artisan  may  be  a  good  carpenter  but  have  no  aptitude 
for  the  fine  work  required  of  a  manufacturing  jeweler. 

In  this  study  of  the  personal  element  and  the  recording  of  the 
same,  we  have  a  kind  of  child  study,  the  value  of  which  will  be 
limited  by  the  size  of  the  class,  the  opportunity  to  study  the  indi- 
vidual pupil,  and  the  ability  of  the  teacher  to  read  and  analyze 
character. 

Teachers  disagree  as  to  the  desirability  of  using  the  record  card, 
the  claim  being  made  that  it  will  be  of  little  value  except  in  the 
hands  of  a  trained  psychologist.  It  has  been  suggested  also  that 
the  schedule  herein  presented  is  too  general  to  be  of  much  value. 
Such  criticisms  should  receive  careful  consideration,  but  we  believe 
that  teachers  should  begin  to  make  a  more  careful  study  of  the 
mental  and  physical  characteristics  of  children  than  heretofore  and 
that  at  present  only  a  few  teachers  are  prepared  to  make  a  more 
detailed  analysis  than  is  herein  indicated.  Furthermore,  we  believe 
that  the  best  way  to  develop  a  more  careful  study  of  the  charac- 
teristics of  children  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  is  by  the  use  of  a 
schedule  of  this  character.  The  record  card  herein  presented  is 
the  result  of  much  discussion  among  a  group  of  Cincinnati  teachers, 
but  its  present  form  is  due  for  the  most  part  to  valuable  suggestions 
from  Mrs.  Helen  T.  Woolley  and  Dean  Herman  Schneider.  But 
whether  a  record  card  be  used  or  not,  it  suggests  a  kind  of  work 
that  should  be  in  progress  in  every  schoolroom. 

Knowledge  of  some  of  the  characteristics  included  in  this  schedule 
may  be  acquired  in  the  classroom,  but  the  teacher  who  relies  entirely 
on  that  will  know  all  too  little  about  her  pupils.  Every  other  oppor- 
tunity for  a  study  of  their  characteristics  should  be  embraced.  For 
example,  from  seeing  the  children  on  the  playground  she  may  learn 
more  about  who  have  ability  for  leadership ;  and  perhaps  other 
characteristics  not  shown  in  the  more  formal  intercourse  of  the 
schoolroom  will  present  themselves.  Consultation  with  the  manual- 
training  teacher  also  is  desirable,  as  he  has  a  peculiar  opportunity 
to  know  children  on  the  manual  as  well  as  on  the  mental  side. 
Furthermore,  pupils  may  show  characteristics  in  the  more  informal 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  CINCINNATI          133 

conduct  of  the  manual-training  room  which  are  not  noticeable 
under  the  conditions  of  the  regular  classroom. 

Of  not  less  importance  in  this  connection  is  a  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  the  parents  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  and  conferences 
with  them  in  regard  to  the  characteristics  of  their  children.  Al- 
though not  always  possible,  it  would  be  well  if  every  teacher  could 
be  personally  acquainted  with  the  parents  of  every  child  under  her 
direction.  Opportunity  for  this  may  be  very  greatly  increased  by 
a  parents'  organization  in  connection  with  the  vocational-guidance 
work.  The  meetings  of  such  an  organization  would  give  oppor- 
tunity to  discuss  the  selection  of  high-school  courses  of  study 
together  with  vocational  questions,  while  here  teachers  might 
meet  parents  and  discuss  the  characteristics  and  welfare  of  the 
individual  pupil. 

The  course  in  vocations  should  be  closely  related  to  the  occupa- 
tional needs  of  the  community  and  to  the  individual  interests  of 
the  children  of  the  class.  The  first  topics  discussed  should  be 
determined  by  the  interests  which  the  children  already  have.  They 
will  furnish  much  of  the  information  themselves.  This  would  be 
supplemented  by  personal  investigation  on  the  part  of  the  teacher, 
by  having  experts  in  various  vocations  address  the  pupils,  by  read- 
ing, by  industrial  excursions,  and  particularly  in  so  far  as  possible 
by  reports  based  upon  careful  investigation.  Out  of  this  work  the 
child  should  develop  a  life-career  motive  on  which  to  base  his 
choice  of  high-school  work. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  eighth-grade  teacher  should  be 
well  informed  as  to  the  details  and  purposes  of  the  various  high- 
school  courses  and  that  she  should  be  able  to  advise  as  to  the 
educational  and  vocational  value  of  each.  When  such  work  is 
definitely  established  in  the  eighth  grade  and  children  select  their 
high-school  courses  on  the  basis  of  the  life-career  motive,  we 
believe  that  a  smaller  percentage  of  mistakes  will  occur  and  that 
the  proportion  of  failures  in  the  first  year  of  high  school  will 
materially  decrease. 

If  this  guidance  work  is  to  succeed  in  a  large  high  school,  the 
organization  must  be  such  as  to  permit  a  continuation  of  the  care- 
ful study  of  the  personal  characteristics  of  each  pupil  begun  in  the 


134  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

eighth  grade ;  and  in  so  far  as  possible,  this  work,  especially  in 
the  first  year,  should  be  in  the  hands  of  teachers  who  will  exercise 
towards  their  pupils  an  intelligent  and  sympathetic  helpfulness. 

EMPHASIS  UPON  LIFE-CAREER  MOTIVE 

But  that  phase  of  vocational  guidance  in  the  high  school  which 
is  most  in  evidence  is  the  systematic  effort  to  keep  the  life-career 
motive  before  the  students  throughout  the  four  years  of  high-school 
life  and  to  give  them  information  which  will  assist  in  the  choice  of 
a  vocation.  In  the  first  and  second  years  the  most  important  duty 
will  be  to  follow  up  the  failures  and  to  use,  along  with  other  incen- 
tives, the  life-career  motive  as  an  important  influence  in  getting 
pupils  to  do  a  better  grade  of  work.  This  should  be  under  the 
direction  of  the  group  advisers.  As  introductory  to  following  up 
carefully  the  individual  pupil  who  is  likely  to  fail,  the  first-year 
students  should  be  given  a  talk  which  will  include  ideas  such  as 
are  indicated  in  the  following  outline  : 

Why  are  you  in  high  school  ? 

Why  did  you  select  the  particular  course  in  which  you  are  working? 

Why  do  you  need  a  high-school  education?  (Cultural,  citizenship,  vocational.) 

Have  you  determined  what  work  you  will  do  as  a  life-career?  If  not,  why 
not  ?  Think  this  over ;  talk  about  it  with  your  parents  and  others. 

If  you  have  determined  what  your  life  work  is  to  be,  how  do  you  expect  the 
school  work  to  help  you  prepare  for  it? 

Are  you  in  the  high-school  course  that  will  best  help  you  to  prepare  for  the 
vocation  of  your  choice  ?  Perhaps  you  cannot  answer  this  now.  If  necessary, 
you  should  be  given  all  year  in  which  to  decide.  If  you  can  show  good  reason 
for  a  change,  you  should  be  permitted  to  make  it  at  the  beginning  of  another 
year  or  perhaps  sooner. 

Autumn  examinations  are  over.  Some  of  you  have  failed.  Why?  Were 
you  prepared?  Have  you  done  your  duty?  If  you  are  to  blame,  what  is  the 
difficulty  ? 

Do  you  lack  earnestness  of  purpose  and  determination  ? 

Do  you  fail  to  see  clearly  the  influence  of  your  school  work  on  your  future 
career  ? 

The  person  who  is  prepared  is  the  one  who  succeeds.  You  are  forming 
habits  that  will  make  for  success  or  failure.  Personal  conferences  will  be  held 
between  you  and  some  teacher  to  determine  the  cause  of  failure  and,  if  pos- 
sible, prevent  a  recurrence  of  it.  Take  advantage  of  every  opportunity  to  get 
personal  assistance  from  your  teachers  when  it  is  needed. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  CINCINNATI  135 

STUDIES  OF  OCCUPATIONS 

For  the  second  year,  a  series  of  lectures  is  presented  on  the 
various  vocations.  The  first  talk  of  this  series,  for  which  the  fol- 
lowing may  serve  as  a  brief  outline,  relates  to  the  choice  of 
a  vocation : 

Some  of  you  entered  high  school  last  year  with  the  purpose  of  preparing 
for  a  definite  career.  Some  perhaps  had  no  such  purpose  then,  but  you  may 
have  now.  Some  have  shown  a  more  or  less  definite  purpose  by  selecting 
courses  that  are  vocational  in  character. 

Each  of  the  nine  courses  has  vocational  value  for  particular  vocations.  For 
example :  The  prospective  physician  should  get  as  much  natural  science  as 
possible ;  the  boy  who  would  become  an  engineer  needs  to  take  all  we  offer  in 
mathematics,  with  physics  and  chemistry  added.  Some  girls,  appreciating  that 
every  woman,  married  or  single,  may  become  a  home-maker,  have  elected  the 
domestic  science  course;  some  of  you  have  not  yet  selected  a  life-career.  It  is 
important  that  you  should  do  so  and  make  your  school  work  a  preparation  for 
it.  It  is  not  necessary,  however,  that  selection  be  made  at  once.  The  entire 
high-school  period  may  be  used,  if  necessary,  by  boys  and  girls  to  find  that  for 
which  they  are  best  fitted ;  but  decision  should  not  be  put  off  longer  than  neces- 
sary. In  high  school  we  give  a  variety  of  studies  and  furnish  opportunities  for 
a  variety  of  experiences  that  should  help  you  to  find  yourself. 

The  choice  may  have  been  made  already ;  if  it  be  a  good  one,  adhere  to  it. 
There  may  be  good  reasons  to  change ;  if  so,  do  it  soon.  For  those  who  have 
not  decided  and  for  those  who  are  uncertain,  we  are  about  to  present  series  of 
talks  and  other  exercises.  For  those  whose  decision  has  been  made,  the  talks 
and  exercises  will  furnish  a  fund  of  valuable  information  and  perhaps  some 
new  light  as  to  what  is  necessary  for  success  in  any  occupation. 

Further  explain  to  the  pupils  that  these  talks  will  relate  to  con- 
ditions and  opportunities  of  employment  in  different  vocations,  to 
the  personal  elements  of  success,  and  to  the  adaptability  of  the 
individual  to  the  vocation  of  his  choice. 

Tell  them  that  under  the  personal  element  we  shall  consider 
what  elements  of  character  and  personal  habits  are  necessary  for 
success.  Say  to  them,  "  From  the  standpoint  of  adaptability  you 
need  to  answer  the  question,  Have  you  the  particular  qualifica- 
tions which  are  necessary  for  success  in  the  vocation  of  your 
choice  ?  "  Lead  them  to  see  that  in  selecting  a  life-career  it  is 
necessary  to  investigate  the  vocational  opportunities  that  are  open 
and  the  qualifications  of  the  individual  for  entering  the  vocation 


136  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

of  his  choice.  Show  that  a  choice  should  depend  upon  the  answers 
to  the  questions  :  Can  I  earn  a  fair  living  in  the  vocation  of  my 
choice  ?  Will  I  be  happy  in  the  job  ?  Will  I  be  able  to  render 
some  social  service  ? 

Finally  say,  "  After  making  such  a  selection,  either  tentative  or 
permanent,  it  is  then  your  business  to  make  your  school  work  a 
preparation  for  your  life  work.  This  preparation  includes  the 
acquirement  of  as  much  knowledge  and  experience  as  you  can 
get  which  will  fit  you  for  the  work,  the  formation  of  habits  which 
will  make  for  success,  and  the  development  of  a  correct  attitude  of 
mind  toward  your  work  and  toward  those  whom  you  are  serving." 

Some  of  these  vocational  talks  are  given  by  representatives  of 
the  various  occupations  ;  some  are  given  by  teachers.  Some  are 
given  to  all  second-year  pupils,  while  others  are  given  to  the  students 
of  a  particular  department.  For  example,  students  in  the  commer- 
cial department  will  be  given  talks  on  the  vocational  opportunities 
and  conditions  in  stenography,  accountancy,  advertising,  business 
management.  Students  in  the  industrial  department  will  be  given 
talks  on  the  building  trades,  the  machinist  trade,  heating  and 
ventilating,  jewelry  manufacture,  etc. 

In  this  connection  we  should  also  notice  that  the  vocationalizing 
of  our  high-school  courses  furnishes  much  greater  opportunity  for 
guidance  than  would  be  possible  otherwise.  With  nine  courses, 
each  having  vocational  value  for  certain  occupations  and  with  con- 
siderable flexibility  of  program  and  courses,  we  are  better  able  to 
learn  the  characteristics  of  the  individual  student  and  to  meet  his 
needs  than  would  be  otherwise  possible.  In  Cincinnati  we  have 
about  reached  the  limit  in  this  direction  under  present  college- 
entrance  requirements. 

TALKS  ON  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

In  the  third  year  we  are  giving  our  students  a  series  of  lectures 
on  higher  education,  including  such  topics  as  the  following : 

(r)  Who  shall  go  to  college  ?  Why  ?  Who  should  not  go  to  college  ?  Why  ? 

(2)  What  our  local  university  offers. 

(3)  Ohio  State  University ;  typical  of  state  institutions  of  learning,  compare 
with  Michigan,  Illinois,  Wisconsin. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  CINCINNATI          137 

(4)  Great  Eastern  universities. 

(5)  Schools  of  engineering :    Cincinnati,  Purdue,  Case,  Cornell,  Massa- 
chusetts Institute  of  Technology. 

(6)  The  best  schools  for  the  social  sciences :  Harvard,  Columbia,  Chicago, 
Wisconsin. 

(7)  Agricultural  education. 

(8)  Great  schools  of  medicine,  law,  theology,  journalism. 

(9)  Women's  colleges. 

(10)  Vocational  schools  other  than  colleges  and  universities, 
(n)  The  cost:  earning  one's  way  through  college. 

Perhaps  the  English  department  has  a  superior  opportunity  to 
keep  before  the  students  of  the  high  school  the  life-career  motive 
and  to  assist  in  giving  them  information  that  will  be  of  value  in 
the  choice  of  a  career.  This  has  been  worked  out  in  the  Central 
High  School,  Grand  Rapids,  under  the  direction  of  the  principal, 
Jesse  B.  Davis.  In  discussing  this  phase  of  the  work,  Mr.  Davis 
says : 

Vocational  guidance  is  or  should  be  a  process  of  drawing  out  from  the 
pupil  knowledge  of  himself,  of  opening  his  eyes  to  see  the  wide  field  of  oppor- 
tunity that  is  before  him,  and  of  developing  in  him  the  elements  of  character 
that  make  for  successful  life.  It  is  thus  a  problem  of  self-development  and  not 
a  matter  of  mere  information  or  the  giving  of  advice.  Following  out  this  theory, 
we  have  selected  in  the  high  school  the  department  of  English  for  the  purpose 
of  experiment.  In  this  subject  we  reach  every  pupil  and  at  the  same  time  offer 
the  students  subjects  for  composition  that  are  of  real  interest  to  them  and  about 
which  they  have  some  ideas  of  their  own. 

During  the  past  year  we  have  been  experimenting  with  this  in 
the  Woodward  High  School  with  a  sufficient  degree  of  success  to 
believe  in  it. 

The  following  topics  (already  published),  for  which  we  are  under 
obligation  to  the  Grand  Rapids  High  School,  will  suggest  the 
character  of  the  work  : 

FIRST  YEAR 

1 .  My  health. 

2.  My  habits. 

3.  My  likes  and  dislikes. 

4.  A  self  estimate. 

5.  (Franklin,  etc.)  at  my  age. 

6.  My  opportunities  compared  with  those  of  (Lincoln). 


138  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

SECOND  YEAR 

1 .  The  kind  of  employment  that  I  can  get  now. 

2.  Child  labor. 

3.  Wages  of  those  leaving  school  at  the  eighth  grade  compared  with  the 
wages  of  high-school  graduates. 

4.  Why  I  have  chosen  my  vocation. 

5.  My  plan  for  entering  the  vocation  of  my  choice. 

THIRD  YEAR 

1 .  What  are  business  habits  ? 

2.  What  kind  of  an  employee  does  the  business  man  want  ? 

3.  What  elements  of  character  are  demanded  by  my  vocation  ? 

4.  Does  my  vocation  impose  upon  me  any  duty  or  obligation  ? 

FOURTH  YEAR 

1.  My  avocation. 

2.  What  is  public  spirit? 

3.  Why  be  honest  in  business? 

4.  Should  business  interfere  with  public  welfare? 

5.  The  right  use  of  money. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  first-year  themes  are  autobiographical 
or  biographical  in  character  ;  the  second-year  themes  relate  to  the 
world's  work  ;  the  third  year  to  the  choice  of  a  vocation  and  the  ele- 
ments of  success  ;  the  fourth  year  to  the  relation  of  the  individual 
to  society. 

In  regard  to  the  composition  work  herein  outlined,  Mr.  Davis 
further  says  :  "  These  suggested  themes  are  merely  types  to  show 
the  aim  of  the  work.  Teachers  who  are  in  sympathy  with  the  plan 
will  readily  work  out  their  own  ideas.  The  pupils  themselves  will 
also  suggest  many  profitable  studies.  The  one  thought  of  prepa- 
ration for  life  and  life's  work  through  the  chosen  vocation  should 
be  the  dominating  purpose  underlying  the  whole  scheme." 

In  connection  with  this  work  there  is  considerable  opportunity 
for  the  English  teacher  to  direct  the  voluntary  reading  of  the  stu- 
dents to  subjects  of  a  vocational  character.  We  have  begun  the 
collection  of  a  vocational-guidance  library  and  contemplate  a  con- 
siderable extension  of  the  work  within  the  present  school  year. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  CINCINNATI          139 

GIVING  INDIVIDUAL  ADVICE  A  FINAL  STEP 

If  possible,  the  senior  year  should  be  the  time  for  final  consid- 
eration of  the  choice  of  a  vocation  on  the  part  of  those  who  are 
still  undecided.  In  this  connection  private  consultation  between 
the  student  and  some  person  selected  to  be  his  counselor  will  -be 
of  great  value.  This  is  about  the  most  delicate  and  distinctly 
personal  work  that  the  counselor  of  high-school  students  is  called 
upon  to  do. 

It  requires  all  the  knowledge  that  can  be  obtained  relating  to  the 
personal  characteristics  of  the  individual,  to  the  characteristics 
necessary  for  success  in  particular  vocations,  to  the  probable  needs 
for  further  vocational  training,  and  to  the  opportunities  for  success 
and  the  conditions  of  employment  in  the  vocations  which  the  stu- 
dent has  under  consideration.  The  knowledge  and  guidance  gained 
by  the  student  through  lectures  and  the  composition  work  in  the 
previous  year  should  now  have  an  immediate  practical  value.  That 
there  is  need  for  this  is  shown  by  a  perusal  of  the  papers  recently 
written  by  the  members  of  the  senior  class  of  Woodward  High 
School,  1913,  on  "  My  Plan  for  a  Career."  This  class  had  received 
no  such  instruction  and  not  more  than  one  third  of  them  had  made 
a  definite  choice  of  a  career.  Those  who  had  made  a  choice  may 
be  divided  into  three  classes  : 

1.  The  student  who  has  made  a  definite  choice,  has  a  good  rea- 
son for  his  choice,  and  who  has  a  fair  chance  of  realizing  success. 

2.  The  student  who  has  made  a  choice  which  may  be  good, 
but  about  which  he  manifestly  needs  counsel  owing  to  a  lack  of 
knowledge  of  the  vocation  of  his  choice  and  owing  to  a  lack 
of  understanding  of  his  own  qualifications  for  the  same.    The 
largest  number  belong  to  this  class. 

3.  The  student  who  has  manifestly  made  an  unwise  choice  and 
needs  to  be  told  of  it. 

MODIFICATION  OF  COURSES  OF  STUDY 

The  third  element  of  vocational  guidance  —  the  adaptation  of 
school  courses  to  the  vocational  needs  of  the  pupils  —  began  be- 
fore vocational  guidance  as  a  movement  was  in  evidence,  but  the 


140  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

introduction  of  vocational  guidance  as  an  organized  part  of  the 
school  program  is  producing  a  valuable  reaction  in  the  acceleration 
of  the  development  of  vocational  education.  In  Cincinnati,  as  in 
several  other  cities,  the  elementary-school  teachers  are  considering 
the  differentiation  of  seventh-  and  eighth-grade  work  to  meet  the 
needs  of  pupils  going  into  (i)  industry,  (2)  commercial  work,  and 
(3)  high  school.  A  committee  of  the  Cincinnati  High  School 
Teachers'  Association  is  preparing  a  report  on  the  adaptation  of 
academic  subjects  to  the  vocational  needs  of  the  student,  and  the 
subject  of  vocational  education  is  receiving  more  serious  and  more 
widespread  consideration  than  ever  before.  As  one  indication  of 
this  we  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  business  men  of  Cincin- 
nati have  become  so  interested  in  the  movement  that  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  is  preparing  to  begin  an  industrial  and  vocational 
survey  of  the  city  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  information  on 
which  to  base  a  further  extension  of  our  system  of  vocational 
education  and  to  assist  in  the  work  of  vocational  guidance. 

As  this  paper  relates  for  the  most  part  to  vocational  guidance  in 
the  high  school,  let  us  in  conclusion  sum  up  the  conditions  which 
make  for  successful  vocational  guidance  in  a  large  high  school : 

1 .  The  appointment  of  a  director  with  time  for  supervision. 

2.  A  school  organization  which  will  permit  of  the  close  personal 
contact  of  each  pupil  with  at  least  one  teacher  of  the  right  type. 

3.  The  exercise  of  an  intelligent  and  sympathetic  helpfulness 
on  the  part  of  the  teacher. 

4.  A  logical  analysis  of  the  personal  characteristics  of  each  pupil. 

5.  An  understanding  of  the  relation  of  the  school  work  to  the 
life-career  motive. 

6.  The  adaptation  of  school  work  to  the  vocational  needs  of 
the  community. 


CONSTANT  AND  VARIABLE  OCCUPATIONS  AND 
THEIR  BEARING  ON  PROBLEMS  OF  VOCATIONAL 

EDUCATION 

BY  LEONARD  P.  AYRES,  RUSSELL  SAGE  FOUNDATION 
(From  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation  publications) 

It  is  commonly  claimed  that  systems  of  vocational  education 
should  be  primarily  designed  to  train  children  to  enter  the  local 
industries.  But  when  we  study  industries  and  occupations  in  a 
number  of  localities,  we  find  that  some  of  the  ways  by  which  men 
and  women  earn  their  livings  are  common  to  all  of  them,  while 
others  engage  many  workers  in  some  places  and  few  or  none  in 
other  places.  From  the  viewpoint  of  vocational  education  this 
seems  an  important  consideration.  If  there  are  certain  occupa- 
tions which  offer  opportunities  for  employment  to  a  considerable 
number  of  workers  everywhere,  we  ought  to  know  which  those 
occupations  are.  Such  occupations  which  we  find  everywhere  en- 
gaging the  services  of  considerable  and  fairly  constant  proportions 
of  the  workers  may  perhaps  properly  be  termed  "  constant  occu- 
pations "  and  by  contrast  those  which  are  not  of  this  character 
may  be  termed  "  variable  occupations." 

In  connection  with  other  studies  of  problems  affecting  voca- 
tional education  the  Division  of  Education  of  the  Sage  Founda- 
tion has  recently  conducted  a  brief  study  to  determine  which 
occupations  may  fairly  be  termed  constant  occupations  and  the 
degree  in  which  they  are  entitled  to  this  classification.  The  study 
seems  to  demonstrate  that  the  classification  is  a  valid  one.  The 
constant  occupations  are  in  the  main  those  which  are  necessary 
to  maintain  the  many  branches  of  that  enlarged  municipal  house- 
keeping which  must  go  on  wherever  large  numbers  of  people  live 
together  in  one  place.  For  example,  house  painting  must  be  carried 

141 


142  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

on  in  the  city  where  the  house  is,  while  paint  may  be  manufactured 
anywhere.  Thus  house  painting  is  a  constant  occupation,  but  the 
manufacture  of  paint  is  a  variable  one.  Similarly  the  baking  of 
bread  must  be  carried  on  by  each  community,  but  crackers  can  be 
baked  somewhere  else  and  brought  to  the  city.  Shoe  repairing 
must  be  carried  on  in  the  city  where  the  shoes  are  worn,  but  the 
shoe  manufacturing  of  the  entire  country  may  be  confined  to  a 
few  cities.  Similarly  the  occupations  of  the  butcher  and  the  baker 
are  constant  occupations  because  they  are  everywhere  represented 
by  considerable  numbers  of  people ;  while  the  work  of  the  candle- 
stick-maker is  a  variable  occupation. 

The  inquiry  conducted  by  the  Foundation  consisted  of  an  analysis 
of  the  occupational  data  published  by  the  Twelfth  Census  for  cities 
of  more  than  50,000  population.  A  study  was  made  of  the  data 
concerning  the  number  of  people  engaged  in  each  of  140  separate 
occupations  in  each  of  these  cities.  As  a  result  it  was  found  that 
there  are  20  occupations  which  are  constant  in  the  sense  that  the 
number  of  men  workers  in  each  is  everywhere  at  least  equal  to 
one  for  each  thousand  people  in  the  population. 

It  was  discovered,  for  example,  that  among  men  workers  the 
occupation  of  being  a  barber  is  the  most  constant  of  all  occupa- 
tions. Throughout  our  cities  there  are  almost  invariably  three 
barbers  for  each  thousand  people  in  the  general  population,  and 
this  remains  true  almost  regardless  of  the  varying  social  or  com- 
mercial characteristics  of  the  different  cities.  Thus  if  anyone  had 
been  conversant  with  this  fact  and  had  known  ahead  of  time  that 
Gary,  Indiana,  would  be  a  city  of  40,000  population,  he  might 
have  predicted  with  almost  certain  accuracy  that  there  would  be 
in  that  city  120  barbers,  not  many  more  and  not  many  less. 

In  conducting  the  study  an  arbitrary  criterion  was  adopted 
whereby  occupations  were  considered  constant  if  they  were  repre- 
sented in  every  city  without  exception  by  at  least  one  worker  for 
every  thousand  people  in  the  population.  For  each  of  the  140  oc- 
cupations ratios  were  worked  out  for  each  of  the  78  cities,  so  as 
to  find  the  city  having  the  lowest  proportion  of  all,  the  city  mid- 
way between  the  lowest  and  the  highest,  and  the  city  having  the 
highest  proportion  of  workers  in  each  given  occupation.  This 


CONSTANT  AND  VARIABLE  OCCUPATIONS         143 


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CONSTANT  AND  VARIABLE  OCCUPATIONS         145 

process  showed  that  there  are  20  constant  occupations  among  men 
workers  as  listed  in  Table  i . 

In  a  similar  way  the  analysis  of  the  data  for  women  wage 
earners  showed  that  there  are  7  constant  occupations  among 
women.  These  are  shown  in  Table  2,  in  which  all  of  the  con- 
ditions are  the  same  as  stated  in  the  title  of  Table  i. 

It  is  almost  certain  that  if  these  data  were  brought  entirely 
up  to  date  one  occupation  would  be  added  to  each  of  these  lists. 
The  one  added  to  the  list  of  constant  occupations  among  the  men 
would  be  that  of  the  chauffeur,  and  the  one  added  to  the  list  of 
women's  occupations  would  be  the  stenographer-typewriter.  These 
occupations,  together  with  the  20  occupations  for  men  and  7  for 
women  that  have  been  listed,  may  be  termed  constant  occupations 
in  the  sense  that  in  every  city,  without  exception,  they  engage  the 
services  of  more  than  one  person  for  each  thousand  people  in  the 
population.  In  the  aggregate  they  include  more  than  one  half  of 
the  people  engaged  in  gainful  occupations  in  these  cities. 

FORTY-ONE  LESS   CONSTANT  OCCUPATIONS 

An  inspection  of  the  list  of  occupations  that  we  have  termed 
constant  will  suffice  to  show  that  many  trades,  businesses,  and  pro- 
fessions which  are  represented  in  every  city  have  not  been  included. 
For  example,  such  common  occupations  as  those  of  the  physician, 
clergyman,  lawyer,  journalist,  and  milliner  have  not  been  listed. 
This  is  because,  while  these  and  other  occupations  are  everywhere 
represented,  they  are  not  invariably  found  in  a  large  enough  pro- 
portion so  that  their  workers  number  at  least  one  in  every  thousand 
of  population.  If,  however,  we  reduce  our  lower  limit  so  as  to 
include  all  occupations  employing  more  than  one  in  10,000  of  the 
population  in  every  city,  we  shall  add  some  3 1  occupations  to  our 
list  among  the  men  workers  and  10  more  for  the  women  workers. 
These  31  less  constant  occupations  among  the  men  are  listed  in 
Table  3,  in  the  descending  order  of  the  proportion  of  workers  in 
the  average  (median)  city.  In  a  similar  way  the  10  less  constant 
occupations  among  women  are  listed  in  Table  4. 


146 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


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CONSTANT  AND  VARIABLE  OCCUPATIONS         147 


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148  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

OCCUPATIONS  THAT  ARE  EQUALLY  CONSTANT 

if  we  consider  merely  the  figures  that  have  been  presented  in 
these  four  tables,  we  shall  note  some  curious  and  interesting  facts 
concerning  the  relative  importance  of  different  occupations,  as  shown 
by  the  number  of  workers  employed.  For  example,  it  will  be  noted 
in  Table  3  that  hucksters  and  physicians  are  represented  by  pre- 
cisely the  same  proportion  of  workers  in  the  cities  where  they  are 
least  frequent,  the  median  cities,  and  the  cities  in  which  they  have 
the  largest  representation.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  clergymen 
and  sextons,  for  whom  the  data  will  be  found  in  the  same  table. 

CITIES   HAVING  LOWEST  AND   HIGHEST   PROPORTIONS   OF 
WORKERS  IN  MANY  OCCUPATIONS 

We  have  noted  that  in  the  main  the  occupations  that  we  have 
listed  even  as  "less  constant"  are  those  occupations  which  are 
necessary  to  carry  on  the  different  branches  of  that  enlarged 
municipal  housekeeping  which  must  be  conducted  wherever  large 
numbers  of  people  live  together  in  communities.  In  other  words, 
these  are  the  occupations  that  are  necessary  for  the  maintenance 
of  community  life.  Nevertheless  the  proportion  of  workers  engaged 
in  any  of  these  occupations  is  largely  influenced  by  the  social  and 
economic  characteristics  of  the  city  in  which  they  work.  Thus  we 
find  that  in  cities  where  the  economic  stress  of  earning  a  livelihood 
is  great  many  occupations  have  few  representatives,  whereas  in 
cities  that  are  economically  more  fortunate  these  occupations  are 
well  represented.  Among  the  seventy-eight  cities  for  which  condi- 
tions were  studied,  Fall  River,  Massachusetts,  and  Manchester, 
New  Hampshire,  best  represent  the  conditions  that  exist  where  the 
strain  of  earning  a  living  is  severe,  while  conditions  in  cities  of  the 
opposite  sort  are  represented  by  Los  Angeles  and  Washington. 

In  each  of  the  following  twelve  occupations  the  city  of  Fall 
River  has  a  smaller  proportion  of  workers  than  any  other  city  of 
more  than  50,000  population  in  the  entire  country  : 

Commercial  travelers  Nurses  Printers 

Tinsmiths  Seamstresses  Servants 

Electricians  Lawyers  Stenographers 

Barbers  Bank  officials  Telephone  operators 


CONSTANT  AND  VARIABLE  OCCUPATIONS         149 

In  a  similar  way  we  find  the  city  of  Manchester  with  a  lower 
proportion  of  workers  than  any  other  of  the  cities  in  six  occupa- 
tions as  follows : 

Messengers  Civil  engineers 

Confectioners  Waiters 

Street-railroad  men  Saleswomen 

In  contrast  with  Fall  River  and  Manchester  are  Los  Angeles 
and  Washington.  In  Los  Angeles  we  find  six  occupations  employ- 
ing a  larger  proportion  of  the  population  than  is  found  in  any  city 
elsewhere.  These  occupations  are  the  following  : 

Physicians  Agricultural  laborers 

Bankers  and  brokers  Photographers 

Retail  merchants  Musicians 

Six-  occupations  are  found  more  numerously  represented  in 
Washington  than  in  any  other  city.  They  are  the  following : 

Messengers  Journalists 

Government  officials  Men  clerks  and  copyists 

Printers  Women  clerks 

The  nature  of  the  occupations  so  numerously  represented  in 
Washington  indicates  that  the  cause  is  to  be  found  rather  in  the 
fact  that  the  general  business  of  the  city  consists  of  work  per- 
taining to  the  activities  of  national  government  than  in  any  ex- 
treme economic  condition  such  as  is  found  in  Fall  River  or  in 
Los  Angeles. 

SIGNIFICANCE  OF  CONSTANT  OCCUPATIONS  FOR 
VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 

The  facts  that  have  been  reviewed  do  not  constitute  a  guide 
for  the  formulation  of  courses  of  vocational  education.  They  do, 
however,  throw  additional  light  on  some  characteristics  of  occupa- 
tions employing  in  the  aggregate  a  considerable  majority  of  all 
the  wage  earners  in  our  larger  cities.  All  such  information  is 
useful  in  helping  secure  a  better  fact-basis  for  our  thinking  and 
acting  with  respect  to  the  problems  of  vocational  education  and 
vocational  guidance.  These  data  are  presented  as  a  contribution 
toward  that  end. 


SOME  CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  PROBLEMS  OF 

INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION   IN   SEVENTY-EIGHT 

AMERICAN  SCHOOL  SYSTEMS 

BY  LEONARD  P.  AYRES,  RUSSELL  SAGE  FOUNDATION 
(From  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation  publications) 

During  the  closing  weeks  of  the  school  year  1912-1913  the 
Division  of  Education  of  the  Sage  Foundation  undertook  an  in- 
vestigation in  cooperation  with  the  superintendents  of  schools  of 
some  78  American  city  school  systems.  The  study  included  all  of 
the  cities  of  between  25,000  and  200,000  population  which  were 
not  so  suburban  in  character  as  to  be  in  reality  subsidiaries  of  larger 
cities  and  in  which  the  school  authorities  were  able  to  cooperate. 
The  object  of  the  investigation  was  to  gather  facts  concerning  the 
boys  in  these  cities  who  had  reached  the  limit  of  the  compulsory- 
attendance  period  and  the  fathers  of  these  boys.  The  purpose  of 
this  study  was  to  secure  a  more  definite  fact-basis  for  thought  and 
action  in  the  field  of  industrial  education.  Data  for  girls  were  not 
included  for  the  reason  that  thirteen-year-old  girls  are  in  the  main 
distributed  through  the  same  grades  as  are  thirteen-year-old  boys, 
and  the  occupations  of  their  fathers  are  in  the  long  run  identical 
with  those  of  the  fathers  of  the  boys.  Hence  the  study  would  have 
produced  the  same  results  if  data  for  girls  had  been  included  and 
would  have  entailed  nearly  twice  as  much  work. 

In  each  case  the  results  were  secured  for  all  the  thirteen-year- 
old  boys  in  the  public  schools  of  these  cities  at  the  date  when  the 
facts  were  gathered.  The  aggregate  number  of  cases  studied  was 
22,027.  The  facsimile  on  page  151  shows  the  type  of  card  used  to 
gather  the  original  data. 

These  cards  were  supplied  by  the  Division  of  Education  of 
the  Foundation.  The  data  were  gathered  by  the  local  school 

150 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    151 

authorities,  and  the  results  were  tabulated  by  the  Foundation.  In 
cities  having  separate  schools  for  white  and  colored  children,  the 
data  were  gathered  for  the  white  boys  and  their  fathers  only. 


THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD  BOYS  IN  EVERY  GRADE  FROM 
KINDERGARTEN  THROUGH  HIGH  SCHOOL 

The  first  data  secured  were  those  showing  the  school  grades  of 
the  boys.  The  tabulation  of  these  figures  brought  to  light  two  sig- 
nificant facts.  The  first  was  that  these  boys  who  have  reached  the 
limit  of  the  compulsory-attendance  period  are  scattered  through 
the  grades  from  the  kindergarten  to  the  senior  year  in  the  high 
school.  Although  they  are  all  of  the  same  age,  they  represent 
every  stage  of  school  advancement  and  are  scattered  through  grades 
normally  representing  thirteen  years  of  school  progress  —  one  of 
the  kindergarten,  eight  of  the  grades,  and  four  of  the  high  school. 


MIGRATION  — OCCUPATION  — PROGRESS  STUDY,  1913 

RECORD  FOR  BOYS  13  YEARS  OLD  (AT  LAST  BIRTHDAY) 


NAME  OF   BOY- 


WAS   HE  BORN  IN  THIS  CITY  ?_ 


_IN  THIS  STATE  ?_ 


_IN  THE  U.S.  ?_ 


WAS  HIS  FATHER  (OR  GUARDIAN)  BORN  IN  THIS  CITY? IN  THIS  STATE? IN  U.S.) 

WHAT  IS  HIS   FATHER'S   (OR  GUARDIAN'S)  OCCUPATION? 


(STATE  IF  POSSIBLE  BUSINESS  AS  WELL  AS  OCCUPATION,  FOR  EXAMPLE,  "CONDUCTOR  ON  STREET 
RAILWAY,"  "CLERK  IN  SHOE  STORE,"  "MACHINE  OPERATOR  IN  BOX  FACTORY.") 


HALF  OF  THE  BOYS  IN  SIXTH  GRADE  OR  BELOW 

The  second  significant  fact  is  that  one  half  of  them  are  in  the 
sixth  grade  or  below.  Since  previous  studies  of  retardation  among 
school  children  have  shown  that  the  children  who  drop  out  of  school 
earliest  are  largely  those  who  are  seriously  retarded  and  find  them- 
selves in  the  lower  grades  at  relatively  advanced  ages,  these  facts 


152 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


are  most  important.  They  indicate  that  large  numbers  of  these 
boys  may  be  expected  to  leave  school  soon  and  go  to  work  with 
an  educational  preparation  so  inadequate  that  they  cannot  enter 
the  ranks  of  industry  with  profit  either  to  themselves  or  to  the 
community.  If  we  reduce  our  original  figures  showing  the  grade 
distributions  of  these  22,027  boys  to  relative  figures  indicating 
conditions  among  each  10,000  boys,  we  have  the  figures  shown 
in  Table  i. 


TABLE  1.    GRADE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  BOYS.    RELATIVE  FIGURES 
SHOWING  BOYS  IN  EACH  GRADE  AMONG  EACH  10,000  BOYS 


GRADE 

BOYS  IN  EACH  GRADE 

BOYS  IN  AND  BELOW 
EACH  GRADE 

Special  and  kindergarten    

O2 

92 

I      

2C 

117 

2        

76 

IQT 

116 

COO 

A 

QAA 

I.4C7 

c 

I,8l4 

-2,267 

6     

2.AQ7 

C..76O 

7 

2.CO7 

8,267 

g     

I.zLzLI 

0.708 

High  school 
I      

24.7 

Q.QCI 

[I    

28 

O.O7O 

Ill  

I  c 

O  OOA 

IV  

6 

IO,OOO 

Total    

10,000 

IO  OOO 

These  figures  which  show  the  grades  of  the  children  who  have 
reached  the  limit  of  the  compulsory-attendance  period  constitute 
one  of  the  simplest  and  most  significant  measures  of  the  efficiency 
of  the  city  school  system  in  carrying  its  children  through  the  grades. 
If,  upon  reaching  the  age  of  thirteen  years,  a  large  proportion  have 
nearly  or  quite  completed  the  elementary  course,  we  know  the  sys- 
tem is  so  administered  as  to  insure  the  completion  of  a  common- 
school  education  for  a  large  proportion  of  the  children.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  considerable  numbers  of  children  at  the  end  of  the 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    153 


TABLE  2.    PER  CENT  OF  BOYS  IN  AND  ABOVE  THE 
SEVENTH  GRADE 


CITY 

PER  CENT 
OF  BOYS  IN 
AND  ABOVE 
SEVENTH 
GRADE 

CITY 

PER  CENT 
OF  BOYS  IN 
AND  ABOVE 
SEVENTH 
GRADE 

i.  Brockton,  Mass.    .    .    . 
2.  Aurora,  111.  (East)     .    . 
3.  Kalamazoo,  Mich.     .    . 
4.  Waterloo,  Iowa     .    .    . 
5    Scranton,  Pa  

77 
73 
64 

63 
62 

40.  Madison,  Wis.     .    .    . 
41.  Canton,  Ohio  .... 
42.  Superior,  Wis.     .    .    . 
43.  Columbus,  Ohio  .    .    . 
44.  Reading,  Pa  

44 
44 

44 
44 

42 

6.  Decatur,  111  

61 

45.  Harrisburg,  Pa.    .    .    . 

42 

7.  Aurora,  111.  (West)    .    . 
8.  Holyoke,  Mass.     .    .    . 

60 

59 

46.  Williamsport,  Pa.     .    . 
47.  Niagara  Falls,  N.Y.     . 
48    Albany,  N.Y  

41 

40 

10.  Newport,  R.I  

i/ 

C7 

49.  Hazelton,  Pa  

•in 

ii.  Mobile,  Ala  

C7 

50.  South  Bend,  Ind.     .    . 

18 

i  ">    Amsterdam,  N.  Y. 

C.,1 

51.  Troy,  N.Y  

18 

13.  Rockford,  111  

CA 

52.  Hamilton,  Ohio   .    .    . 

-?8 

14.  Davenport,  Iowa  .    .•    . 
15.  Pittsfield,  Mass.     .     .    . 
16.  Paterson,  N.J  

54 
54 

C-} 

53.  Atlanta,  Ga  
54.  Pueblo,  Colo.  (Dist  i) 
55.  Lincoln,  Nebr.     .    .    . 

37 
36 
-?6 

17.  Saginaw,  Mich.  (West) 
1  8.  Lancaster,  Pa  
19.  Dubuque,  Iowa      .    .    . 
20.  York,  Pa  

52 
52 
51 

CT 

56.  Chattanooga,  Tenn.     . 
57.  Bay  City,  Mich.  .    .    . 
58.  New  Bedford,  Mass.    . 
59.  Portland,  Maine  . 

36 
35 
34 

^4, 

21.  Evansville,  Ind.     .    .    . 
22.  Norwich,  Conn.     .    .     . 
23.  Auburn,  N.Y  

51 
5° 

CO 

60.  Manchester,  N.H.   .    . 
61.  Fall  River,  Mass.     .    . 
62.  Johnstown,  Pa.    .    .    . 

34 
34 
-i-j 

24.  Utica,  N.Y  

4Q 

63.  Nashville,  Tenn.      .    . 

-i-i 

25.  Springfield,  Ohio  .    .    . 
26.  Syracuse,  N.Y.      .    .    - 

49 
40 

64.  Youngstown,  Ohio  .    . 
65.  New  Britain,  Conn. 

33 
-?i 

27    San  Diego,  Cal 

AO 

66.  Danville,  111  

-12 

28.  Chicopee,  Mass.    .    .    . 
29.  Tacoma,  Wash.     .    .    . 
30.  Meriden,  Conn.     .    .    . 
31.  Elmira,  N.Y  

49 
49 
49 

47 

67.  Galveston,  Tex.  .    .    . 
68.  Trenton,  N.J  
69.  Pueblo,  Colo.  (Dist.  20) 
70.  Woonsocket,  R.I.    .    . 

32 

31 
28 
24 

32.  Springfield,  Mo.    .    .     . 
33    Saginaw  Mich   (East) 

47 
46 

71.  Richmond,  Va.    .    .    . 
72.  Norfolk,  Va  

24 

21 

34.  Waterbury,  Conn.      .    . 
35.  Joliet,  111  

45 

4C 

73.  Lansing,  Mich.    .    .    . 
74.  Birmingham,  Ala.    .     . 

21 

2O 

36.  Council  Bluffs   Iowa 

AC. 

75    Columbia,  S.C. 

18 

37.  Flint,  Mich  

4C. 

76.  Charleston,  S.C.      .    . 

18 

38.  Binghamton,  N.Y.      .    . 

4S 

77.  Bridgeport,  Conn.   .    . 

16 

39.  South  Omaha,  Nebr. 

44 

78.  Portsmouth,  Va.  .     .    . 

12 

154  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

compulsory-attendance  period  are  still  in  the  lower  grades,  we  may 
be  sure  that  most  of  them  will  drop  out  of  school  without  staying 
to  finish  the  course.  According  to  the  conventional  standards  for 
measuring  retardation,  the  child  who  is  thirteen  years  of  age  is 
considered  to  be  in  his  normal  grade  if  he  is  in  the  seventh  grade 
or  above  and  to  be  retarded  if  he  is  in  the  sixth  grade  or  below. 
If  then  we  compute  for  each  of  our  78  cities  the  per  cent  of 
thirteen-year-old  boys  who  are  in  the  seventh  grade  or  above,  we 
have  an  important  index  of  one  phase  of  the  efficiency  of  their 
school  systems.  This  comparison  shows  the  results  presented  in 
Table  2. 

WHAT  SOME  CITIES  HAVE  DONE,  OTHERS  MAY  DO 

Table  2  impressively  illustrated  the  wide  range  of  conditions  in 
city  school  systems.  At  one  extreme  we  have  Aurora,  Illinois, 
and  Brockton,  Massachusetts,  withvmore  than  70  per  cent  of  their 
thirteen-year-old  boys  in  the  seventh  grade  or  above,  while  at  the 
other  extreme  we  find  Columbia  (South  Carolina),  Charleston  (South 
Carolina),  Bridgeport  (Connecticut),  and  Portsmouth  (Virginia)  with 
less  than  20  per  cent  above  the  seventh  grade.  The  contrast  be- 
tween the  cities  at  the  two  extremes  of  the  table  shows  that  in 
Brockton  almost  8  boys  out  of  every  10  are  within  sight  of  complet- 
ing the  common-school  course,  while  in  Portsmouth  scarcely  more 
than  i  in  10  shows  the  same  advance.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
industrial  education  these  conditions  are  of  the  greatest  importance. 

They  indicate  that  in  many  cities  the  problem  of  securing  a 
reasonably  complete  elementary  schooling  for  all  the  children  is 
far  more  pressing  than  that  of  instituting  specialized  industrial 
training.  They  show,  too,  that  since  this  has  been  accomplished 
by  some  of  the  cities,  it  may  be  hopefully  undertaken  by  all. 


The  data  giving  the  birthplaces  of  the  boys  and  their  fathers 
show  that  only  about  one  father  in  six  is  now  living  in  the  city  of 
his  birth  and  that  among  the  boys  only  a  few  more  than  one  half 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    155 

are  now  living  where  they  were  born.  These  facts  are  signifi- 
cant because  it  is  often  urged  that  the  schools  should  develop 
courses  of  industrial  education  that  will  directly  prepare  the 
children  to  enter  the  local  industries.  But  if  present  conditions 
maintain  in  the  future,  the  great  majority  of  adults  are  not 
going  to  work  in  the  same  communities  in  which  they  received 
their  schooling. 

The  facts  as  to  the  birthplaces  of  the  boys  and  their  fathers 
among  the  22,027  cases  studied  are  shown  in  Table  3. 


TABLE  3.    BIRTHPLACES  OF  BOYS  AND  BIRTHPLACES  OF 
THEIR  FATHERS 


BIRTHPLACE 

BOYS 

FATHERS 

Number 

Per  cent 

Number 

Per  cent 

Same  city  

12,699 

4*233 

3.069 
2,026 

58 
!9 

14 

9 

3,601 

5.349 

4,364 

8,713 

16 

24 
2O 
40 

Same  state  but  not  same  city     .... 
Other  state  in  United  States      .... 
Foreign  country     

Total  

22,027 

IOO 

22,027 

IOO 

This  table  shows  that  even  among  American-born  fathers  the 
number  now  living  in  the  cities  where  they  were  born  includes 
only  about  one  in  four,  while  among  the  boys  the  proportion  is 
only  about  three  in  five.  While  this  is  true  for  the  group  as  a 
whole,  the  figures  for  the  different  cities  show  wide  variations. 
The  ranges,  together  with  the  figures  for  each  city,  are  shown  in 
Table  4. 


INDUSTRIES  IN  WHICH  THE  FATHERS  WORK 

The  returns  of  the  investigation  showed  for  each  of  the  fathers 
the  nature  of  the  trade  or  business  in  which  he  was  engaged 
and  also  what  kind  of  work  he  was  doing  in  that  trade  or  busi- 
ness. This  made  possible  a  double  classification  of  the  data,  first 
by  industries  and  second  by  occupations  within  the  industries. 


1 56 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  4.    PER  CENT  OF  BOYS   LIVING   IN  CITY  OF  BIRTH  AND 
PER  CENT  OF  THEIR  FATHERS  LIVING  IN  CITY  OF  BIRTH 


CITY 


NUMBER 
OF  CASES 


PER  CENT  LIVING  IN 
CITY  OF  BIRTH 


Fathers 


Albany,  N.Y 468 

Amsterdam,  N.Y 129 

Atlanta,  Ga 583 

Auburn,  N.Y 101 

Aurora,  111.  (East  Side) 100 

Aurora,  111.  (West  Side) 57 

Bay  City,  Mich 203 

Binghamton,  N.Y 182 

Birmingham,  Ala 451 

Bridgeport,  Conn 704 

Brockton,  Mass 333 

Canton,  Ohio 291 

Charleston,  S.C 115 

Chattanooga,  Tenn 103 

Chicopee,  Mass 166 

Columbia,  S.C 58 

Columbus,  Ohio 876 

Council  Bluffs,  Iowa 187 

Danville,  111 184 

Davenport,  Iowa 280 

Decatur,  111 162 

Dubuque,  111 98 

Elmira,  N.Y 167 

Evansville,  Ind 277 

Fall  River,  Mass 801 

Flint,  Mich 210 

Galveston,  Tex 141 

Hamilton,  Ohio 176 

Harrisburg,  Pa ' 402 

Hazelton,  Pa 161 

Holyoke,  Mass 299 

Johnstown,  Pa '. 317 

Joliet,  111 262 

Kalamazoo,  Mich 184 

Lancaster,  Pa 214 

Lansing,  Mich 164 

Lincoln,  Nebr 178 

Madison,  Wis 140 

Manchester,  N.H 277 

Meriden,  Conn 194 

Mobile,  Ala 198 


39 
13 
H 
24 

12 
19 
13 
14 

7 

9 
ii 

16 

51 
5 
8 

7 
IS 

9 
ii 

25 
'3 

21 
12 
24 
13 

8 

20 

20 

19 
19 

7 

26 
10 

9 
34 

9 

2 

14 
II 

16 
29 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    157 


TABLE  4.    PER  CENT  OF  BOYS   LIVING  IN   CITY  OF  BIRTH 
AND    PER   CENT  OF  THEIR   FATHERS    LIVING  IN  CITY  OF 

BIRTH    (CONTINUED) 


CITY 

NUMBER 

PER  CENT 
CITY  01 

LIVING  IN 
BIRTH 

Fathers 

Boys 

Nashville,  Tenn  

iq6 

22 

6-1 

New  Bedford,  Mass  

680 

q 

C2 

New  Britain,  Conn  

248 

7 

cr 

Newport,  R.I  

I4C. 

1O 

7Q 

Niagara  Falls,  N.Y  

161 

12 

47 

Norfolk,  Va  

206 

18 

C.4 

Norwich,  Conn  

141 

21 

C2 

807 

17 

68 

Pittsfield,  Mass  

242 

I  2 

Portland,  Maine  

1O7 

17 

61 

Portsmouth,  Va  

IOI 

•50 

Pueblo,  Colo.  (Dist.  i)    

118 

Pueblo,  Colo.  (Dist.  20)  

118 

"O 

Racine,  \Vis  

21/1 

jy 

fin 

Reading,  Pa.    .        

C7  C 

1J 

18 

Richmond,  Va  

461 

12 

72 

Rockford,  111  

•31  e 

IO 

64 

San  Diego,  Cal  

2QI 

I 

Saginaw,  Mich.  (East  Side)     

I8-? 

I  c 

1  -5 
6b 

Saginaw,  Mich.  (West  Side)    

I  IO 

24 

6, 

Scranton,  Pa  .    . 

fico 

21 

UJ 
78 

South  Bend,  Ind  .    . 

2fic 

7° 

South  Omaha,  Nebr  

I  CI 

47 
.« 

Springfield,  Mo  

O4 

4° 

Springfield,  Ohio     

1  1 

43 
A(\ 

Superior,  Wis  

171 

I 

ftA 

Syracuse,  N.Y  

676 

fie 

Tacoma,  Wash  

At  C 

D5 

Trenton,  N.J  

484 

6b 
fie 

Troy,  N.Y  

276 

*y 

°5 

•78 

Utica,  N.Y  

jj 
16 

7° 

Waterbury,  Conn  

57 
fii 

Waterloo,  Iowa  (West  Side)   

CO 

C 

DJ 

2C 

Williamsport,  Pa  

181 

2/4 

fie 

Woonsocket,  R.I  . 

°5 

York,  Pa  . 

111 

1C 

i0 
64 

Youngstown,  Ohio  

214    ' 

IO 

48 

Total     

22  O27 

16 

e.8 

5° 

158 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


The  industrial  classification  was  the  one  adopted  by  the  United  States 
Census  Bureau  and  included  the  following  five  main  divisions  : 
I.  Industries  of  Extraction — Agriculture,  Forestry,  Mining,  etc. 
II.  Industries  of  Transformation —  Building  Trades,  Manufac- 
turing, etc. 

III.  Industries  of  Transportation  and  Communication  —  Rail- 
roads, Telegraph,  etc. 

IV.  Industries  of  Trade  —  Wholesale  and  Retail  Trade,  Real 
Estate,  etc. 

V.  Service  —  Government,  Professional,  Domestic,  Personal, 
etc. 

The  tabulations  showed  that  the  fathers  were  distributed  in  these 
five  main  industrial  divisions  as  shown  in  Table  5. 

TABLE  5.    INDUSTRIAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  FATHERS 


INDUSTRIAL  GROUP 

FATHERS 

Number 

Per  cent 

Extraction    

754 
10,934 
2,774 
4,129 

2,597 

3-5 

51-6 
I3-I 
19-5 
I2.3 

Transformation     

Transportation      

Trade    .                  .     . 

Service      

Total     .    . 

21,188 

IOO.O 

Retired,  not  stated,  or  none     

839 

Grand  total    

22,027 

ONLY  HALF  OF  THE  FATHERS  WORK  IN  BUILDING 
TRADES  OR  MANUFACTURING 

One  fact,  shown  in  Table  5,  is  that  only  about  one  half  of  these 
men  are  found  in  the  Industries  of  Transformation  which  include 
the  building  trades  and  all  classes  of  manufacturing.  This  is 
important,  because  plans  for  inaugurating  systems  of  vocational 
education  are  commonly  based  on  the  proposition  that  a  large 
majority  of  the  young  people  in  _our  city  schools  will  find  their 
life  work  in  these  industries. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    159 

Another  important  fact  is  that  the  distribution  of  these  men  in 
these  industrial  groups  is  different  from  the  corresponding  figures 
for  male  workers  in  the  country  as  a  whole  or  in  all  American 
cities.  The  chief  reason  for  this  is  that  we  are  here  dealing  with 
adult  men  of  sufficient  maturity  and  stability  of  position  in  their 
communities  to  be  fathers  of  thirteen-year-old  boys  in  the  public 
schools.  The  group  includes  no  very  young  or  very  old  men,  few 
recent  immigrants,  few  floaters,  and  few  chronic  ne'er-do-wells.  It 
is  because  of  these  characteristics  that  it  furnishes  facts  which  seem 
of  unusual  significance  in  the  attempt  to  foresee  what  sorts  of  life 
work  the  young  people  now  in  city  schools  may  be  expected  to  go  into. 

The  variations  between  the  different  cities  in  the  proportions  of 
the  men  engaged  in  the  five  industrial  classes  are  so  great  that 
each  city  is  characteristically  different  from  all  the  rest  and  no  one 
shows  even  approximately  the  conditions  indicated  by  the  averages 
for  the  entire  group.  The  degree  to  which  this  is  true  may  be 
judged  from  the  figures  in  Table  6.  Since  there  are  78  cities,  the 
fortieth  has  in  each  case  been  taken  as  the  middle  one. 


TABLE  6.  PER  CENT  OF  FATHERS  IN  EACH  INDUSTRIAL  GROUP 

IN  CITIES  HAVING  RESPECTIVELY  THE  LOWEST,  MIDDLE,  AND 

HIGHEST  PER  CENTS  IN  EACH  GROUP 


LOWEST 

MIDDLE 

HIGHEST 

Per 

Per 

Per 

INDUSTRIAL  GROUP 

cent  of 

cent  of 

cent  of 

City 

fathers 

City 

fathers 

City 

fathers 

in  each 

in  each 

in  each 

group 

group 

group 

Extraction 

Harrisburg 

— 

Rockford 

3 

Hazelton 

34 

Transformation 

Galveston 

2O 

Aurora 

SI 

Chicopee 

78 

Transportation  . 

New  Britain 

4 

Youngstown 

12 

Harrisburg 

33 

Trade  .... 

Chicopee 

6 

Trenton 

18 

Columbia 

45 

Service     .     .     . 

Chicopee 

4 

Danville 

1  1 

Newport 

23 

Table  7  gives  the  percentages  of  fathers  in  each  industrial  group 
for  all  of  the  78  cities.  Where  these  percentages  do  not  add  to 
100  per  cent,  it  is  because  the  figures  for  the  group  entitled 
"  Retired,  not  stated,  or  none,"  have  been  omitted. 


i6o 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  7.  PER  CENT  OF  FATHERS  IN  EACH  INDUSTRIAL  GROUP 


CITY 

PER  CENT  OF  FATHERS  IN 

Extrac- 
tion 

Transfor- 
mation 

Transpor- 
tation 

Trade 

Service 

Albany,  N.Y  

I 

5 
i 

3 

2 

5 
M 
3 
3 

2 

2 
2 

4 

2 
2 

3 
i 

2 
12 

3 

10 

7 
5 
8 

2 

3 

2 

3 

34 

i 

5 
3 

5 

2 

4 
i 
i 
3 

7 

38 
63 

32 

52 
63 
Si 
42 

49 
34 
61 

63 
60 

22 

32 
78 
26 
46 
36 

34 

42 

4i 
46 

39 
46 

59 
58 
20 

55 
34 

22 

66 
56 
53 
55 
53 
63 
25 
43 
57 
62 

18 

5 
18 
ii 
10 

9 
16 

19 

20 

7 
7 
9 
23 
14 
8 

12 
15 

23 

18 

12 

H 
II 

19 

9 
8 

14 

20 

6 
33 
'3 
6 

10 
21 
II 
12 

7 
19 
M 
9 

7 

21 
16 

32 
2O 

12 

T9 

14 
19 
31 

18 
14 
i7 
4i 
33 
6 

45 

20 
19 

16 

20 

17 
20 
21 
22 
17 
15 
31 
I? 
I? 

18 
13 
M 

12 

17 
22 

17 
31 
20 

I? 
13 

16 
8 
16 
ii 
8 
9 

12 

9 

IO 

II 

12 

8 
9 
17 
4 
H 
J3 
14 
ii 

19 
16 

IO 

*3 

!3 
12 

8 

22 
12 
T3 

6 

12 

9 
9 
8 

9 

8 

21 
!9 
13 

8 

Atlanta,  Ga  

Aurora,  111.  (East  Side)  

Aurora,  111.  (West  Side)     .... 
Bay  City,  Mich  

Binghamton,  N.Y  

Birmingham,  Ala  

Bridgeport,  Conn  

Brockton,  Mass  

Canton,  Ohio  

Charleston,  S  C  

Chattanooga,  Tenn  

Chicopee,  Mass  

Columbia,  S.C  

Columbus,  Ohio  

Council  Bluffs,  Iowa  ' 

Danville,  111  

Davenport,  Iowa     

Decatur,  111  

DubuQue,  Iowa  

Elmira  NY  . 

Evansville,  Ind  

Fall  River,  Mass  

Flint,  Mich  

Galveston,  Tex  

Hamilton,  Ohio  

Harrisburg,  I5**  

Hazelton,  Pa  

Holyoke,  Mass  

Johnstown,  Pa  

Joliet,  111     

Kalamazoo,  Mich  

Lancaster,  Pa  

Lansing,  Mich  

Lincoln,  Nebr  

Madison,  Wis  

Manchester,  N.H  

Meriden,  Conn  

CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    161 


TABLE  7.    PER  CENT  OF  FATHERS  IN  EACH  INDUSTRIAL 
GROUP  (CONTINUED) 


CITY 

PER  CENT  OF  FATHERS  IN 

Extrac- 
tion 

Transfor- 
mation 

Transpor- 
tation 

Trade 

Service 

Mobile,  Ala  

3 
I 

4 

3 
ii 

i 

2 

6 

6 
i 

4 
3 

2 
I 
I 

3 
6 

7 
14 

25 
i 

5 
3 

2 
I 

3 
i 

2 
2 
I 

3 

2 
I 
I 

26 

37 
61 

67 
33 
61 

31 
55 
66 

58 
38 
56 
37 
54 
65 
57 
45 
7i 
38 
43 
48 
28 
58 
47 
37 
5i 
34 
52 
45 
58 
49 
5° 
64 

49 
5i 
61 

55 
62 

23 
17 
5 

4 
ii 

9 
17 
9 
8 
8 
18 
8 
18 

21 
II 

14 

18 
8 
9 
15 
i5 
13 
13 
ii 

M 
7 
17 
ii 
16 
ii 

12 
12 
8 
12 

18 
8 
13 

12 

31 
26 

14 
19 
*9 
II 

33 
'9 
14 
16 

25 
27 

23 
ii 

12 

14 
21 
12 
21 
22 
15 
17 

18 
13 

27 
H 
3° 

21 

18 
18 

20 
20 
12 
25 
13 
IS 
IS 
13 

13 
IS 
13 
6 

23 
H 
H 
II 
10 

8 

12 
10 

16 
9 
7 
10 

13 

6 

21 

9 
7 
ii 

10 

9 
16 

13 
13 
13 
13 
ii 

H 

10 
12 

7 

10 

J3 
10 
10 

Nashville,  Tenn  

New  Bedford,  Mass  

New  Britain,  Conn  

Newport,  R.I  

Niagara  Falls,  N.Y  

Norfolk,  Va  

Norwich,  Conn  

Paterson,  N.J.      .    .        

Pittsfield,  Mass  

Portland,  Maine  

Portsmouth,  Va  

Pueblo,  Colo.  (Dist.  i)    

Pueblo,  Colo.  (Dist.  20)  

Racine,  Wis  

Reading,  Pa  

Richmond,  Va  

Rockford,  111  

San  Diego,  Cal  

Saginaw,  Mich.  (East  Side)     .     .    . 
Saginaw,  Mich.  (West  Side)  .    .    . 
Scranton,  Pa  

South  Bend,  Ind  

South  Omaha,  Nebr  
Springfield,  Mo  

Springfield,  Ohio    

Superior,  \Vis  

Syracuse,  N.Y  

Tacoma,  Wash  

Trenton,  N.J.       ... 

Troy,  N.Y  

Utica,  N.Y  

Waterbury,  Conn  

Waterloo,  Iowa  (West  Side)  .    .    . 
Williamsport,  Pa  

Woonsocket,  R.I.  ... 

York,  Pa  

Youngstown,  Ohio  

READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


OCCUPATIONS  OF  FATHERS 

The  occupational  classification  of  these  workers  was  made 
under  six  heads,  of  which  the  first  three  relate  to  occupations 
primarily  manual  in  nature,  while  the  remaining  three  groups 
are  primarily  mental. 

TABLE  8.   OCCUPATIONAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  FATHERS 


OCCUPATIONAL  GROUP 

FATHERS 

Number 

Per  cent 

Manual 
Unskilled  laborers    .    •    

785 
4,621 
8,490 

3-7 

21.8 

40.1 

Semiskilled  laborers  and  machine  operatives      .... 
Artisans  and  foremen       

13,896 

65.6 

Mental 
Clerks  and  salesmen     

1,883 

4,562 
847 

8.9 

21.6 

3-9 

Managers,  superintendents,  and  proprietors    

Professional  and  financial  workers  

Total  mental      

7,292 

34-4 

Total  manual  and  mental  

21,188 

1  00.0 

Retired,  not  stated,  or  none      

839 

Grand  total    

22,027 

ONE  THIRD  IN  HEAD  WORK;  TWO  THIRDS  IN 
HAND  WORK 

Three  significant  facts  are  brought  to  light  by  the  figures  of 
Table  5.  The  first  is  that  more  of  these  men  are  in  professional 
work  than  there  are  engaged  in  unskilled  labor.  The  second  is 
that  the  group  of  managers,  superintendents,  and  proprietors  is 
practically  as  large  as  that  made  up  of  semiskilled  laborers.  The 
third  is  that  the  mental  workers  constitute  more  than  one  third  of 
all  the  workers. 

In  the  occupational  distribution,  as  in  the  industrial  one,  we 
find  the  greatest  variation  in  the  conditions  in  the  different  cities. 
Table  9  shows  the  range  in  percentages  and  here  again  the  fortieth 
city  in  the  list  is  in  each  case  taken  as  the  middle  city. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    163 

TABLE  9.    PER  CENT  OF  FATHERS  IN  EACH  OCCUPATIONAL 

GROUP    IN    CITIES    HAVING    RESPECTIVELY    THE    LOWEST, 

MIDDLE,  AND  HIGHEST  PER  CENTS  IN  EACH  GROUP 


LOWEST 

MIDDLE 

HIGHEST 

OCCUPATIONAL 

Per 
cent  of 

Per 

cent  of 

Per 

cent  of 

City 

fathers 

City 

fathers 

City 

fathers 

in  each 

in  each 

in  each 

group 

group 

group 

Manual 

Unskilled  .     . 

Charleston 

— 

Lancaster 

6 

S.  Omaha 

26 

Semiskilled    . 

Mobile 

3 

Albany 

18 

Brockton 

S1 

Artisans    and 

foremen 

Columbia 

M 

New  Britain 

40 

Meriden 

56 

Mental 

Clerks  .     .     . 

Chicopee 

2 

Pueblo 

9 

Columbia 

28 

Managers  and 

proprietors 

Chicopee 

7 

Aurora 

21 

Charleston 

45 

Professional  . 

Trenton 

I 

Lancaster 

4 

Springfield, 

Mo. 

10 

Table  10  gives  the  percentages  of  fathers  in  each  occupation 
group  for  each  of  the  78  cities.  As  before,  where  the  figures  for 
any  city  do  not  add  to  100  per  cent,  it  is  because  data  for  the 
"  retired,  not  stated,  or  none  "  group  have  been  omitted. 


MORE  FOREIGN  BORN  IN  MANUAL  WORK;    MORE 
AMERICANS  IN  MENTAL  WORK 

The  records  showed  that  40  per  cent  of  the  fathers  were  born 
in  foreign  countries.  A  tabulation  of  their  occupational  records 
was  made  to  see  how  they  differed  from  those  of  the  American- 
born  fathers.  The  results  are  presented  in  Table  1 1,  which  shows 
the  number  in  each  occupational  group  among  each  1000  fathers 
among  the  foreign  and  American  born. 

The  results  show  that  the  foreign  born  are  relatively  more 
numerous  among  the  manual  workers,  and  the  Americans  among 
the  mental  ones.  Nevertheless,  the  disproportion  is  not  so  great 
as  many  would  perhaps  have  expected. 


164 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  10.    PER  CENT  OF  FATHERS  IN  EACH  OCCUPATIONAL 

GROUP 


CITY 

PER  CENT  OF  FATHERS  IN 

Manual  occupation 

Mental  occupation 

Unskilled 
laborers 

Semi- 
skilled 
laborers 
and 
machine 
oper- 
atives 

Artisans 
and 
foremen 

Clerks 
and 
salesmen 

Man- 
agers, 
superin- 
tendents, 
and  pro- 
prietors 

Profes- 
sional 
and 
financial 
workers 

Albany,  N.Y  
Amsterdam,  N.Y.  .  .  . 
Atlanta,  Ga  

6 

6 

4 
3 

6 

5 

2 

4 
6 

3 
6 

2 

8 

5 
10 

4 
4 
4 
6 

4 
7 
3 
8 

10 

6 

7 
3 
IS 

7 

6 

5 

6 
4 
3 

18 
34 
9 
II 

12 
II 

25 
T9 

5 
27 
5i 
23 
9 
6 

29 
H 
16 

20 

12 

17 

9 

21 
IS 
13 
46 
24 
12 
12 
22 
10 

35 
18 
24 
23 

21 

25 
II 

16 
36 

!7 

39 
3° 
33 
46 

54 
46 

4i 

40 

39 
4i 

22 
41 
23 
32 

54 
H 
37 
40 

47 
36 
48 
27 
4i 
47 

22 

47 

28 

43 
40 

52 

35 
40 

45 
32 
37 
34 
34 
4i 
32 
56 

II 

8 

14 
6 
6 

12 

8 

12 
15 

9 
5 
7 
19 
17 

2 
28 
II 

8 
8 
ii 
9 
5 
13 
9 
6 

7 

20 

6 

12 

8 
9 

7 

5 
ii 

10 
6 

20 

9 
9 

5 

22 
!7 

36 
26 
16 

21 

15 
20 

3o 

18 
17 

20 

45 
35      . 

36 

22 
24 

J9 

26 

22 

37 

21 
21 
15 

16 

26 
23 
17 
21 

H 

16 
16 

23 

2l 
26 

23 

20 
M 
17 

3 

3 

6 
8 

2 

5 
4 
6 

2 
2 

3 
4 
8 

2 

7 
5 

2 

5 
3 
6 
6 
5 
5 

2 

3 
5 
4 
3 

2 

4 
4 
3 
3 
4 
4 
7 
8 

5 

2 

Auburn,  N.Y  
Aurora,  111.  (East  Side)  . 
Aurora,  111.  (West  Side)  . 
Bay  City,  Mich  

Binghamton,  N.Y. 

Birmingham,  Ala.  .  .  . 
Bridgeport,  Ct  
Brockton,  Mass  
Canton,  Ohio  

Charleston,  S.C  

Chattanooga,  Tenn.  .  . 
Chicopee,  Mass  
Columbia,  S.C  
Columbus,  Ohio  .... 
Council  Bluffs,  Iowa  .  . 
Danville,  111  

Davenport,  Iowa  .... 
Decatur,  111  

Dubuque,  Iowa  .... 
Elmira,  N.Y  

Evansville,  Ind  

Fall  River,  Mass  
Flint,  Mich  

Galveston,  Tex  

Hamilton,  Ohio  .... 
Harrisburg,  Pa  

Hazelton,  Pa  

Holyoke,  Mass  
Johnstown,  Pa  
Joliet,  111  

Kalamazoo,  Mich.  .  .  . 
Lancaster,  Pa  

Lansing,  Mich  
Lincoln,  Nebr  

Madison,  Wis  
Manchester,  N.H. 

Meriden,  Conn  

CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    165 


TABLE  10.    PER  CENT  OF  FATHERS  IN  EACH  OCCUPATIONAL 
GROUP  (CONTINUED) 


CITY 

PER  CENT  OF  FATHERS  IN 

Manual  occupation 

Mental  occupation 

Unskilled 
laborers 

Semi- 
skilled 
laborers 
and 
machine 
oper- 
atives 

Artisans 
and 
foremen 

Clerks 
and 
salesmen 

Man- 
agers, 
superin- 
tendents, 
and  pro- 
prietors 

Profes- 
sional 
and 
financial 
workers 

Mobile,  Ala  

I 

5 

6 
ii 
i 
i 
3 
7 

5 
i 

6 

14 
6 

9 
3 
3 
5 
4 
5 
9 
3 
26 

3 
17 

!3 

8 
7 
7 
7 
ii 

4 

9 
ii 

7 
8 

9 

3 

10 

45 
27 

12 
26 

6 

23 

39 
24 
ii 
ii 
M 
23 

22 

17 
8 

16 

8 

!9 

29 
16 

23 
13 

10 

9 
M 
19 
15 

27 
24 

21 

19 
10 

24 
40 

15 

18 

29 

3* 
26 

40 
38 

3t 
36 

39 
3i 
36 
4i 
52 
38 
40 

44 
47 
45 
54 
33 
43 

3* 
46 

40 

35 
40 

43 
38 
42 
4i 
37 
38 
34 
55 
32 
37 
30 
48 

47 

16 
18 
6 
6 
4 
5 
M 
6 
6 
7 
'3 
8 

9 
4 
5 
7 
ii 
8 

10 
20 
10 

9 
9 
5 
M 
6 

7 
ii 

8 
7 

10 

7 
8 

12 

8 
7 
9 
9 

40 

25 
12 

19 

33 
16 

36 
26 
18 

23 
26 
26 

27 
16 

'9 

17 
27 
16 

32 
19 
16 
16 

22 
17 
23 
20 

25 

16 
24 

21 
2O 
24 
14 
29 

17 
IS 
IS 
13 

9 
9 
3 

8 
4 
5 
5 
3 
3 
4 
3 
6 

2 

3 

2 

5 
3 
9 
i 

2 

3 
3 
3 

10 

5 

2 

4 
4 
i 

2 

3 
i 

9 
4 
i 

4 
4 

Nashville,  Tenn  
New  Bedford,  Mass.     .    . 
New  Britain,  Conn.  .    .    . 
Newport,  R.I  

Niagara  Falls,  N.Y.  .    . 

Norfolk,  Va  

Norwich,  Conn  

Paterson,  N.J  

Pittsfield,  Mass  

Portland,  Maine    .... 
Portsmouth,  Va  

Pueblo,  Colo.  (Dist.  i)  .    . 
Pueblo,  Colo.  (Dist.  20)    . 
Racine  \VTis  

Reading,  Pa  

Richmond,  Va  
Rockford   111  

San  Diego,  Cal  

Saginaw,  Mich.  (East)  .    . 
Saginaw,  Mich.  (West) 
Scranton,  Pa  

South  Bend,  Ind  
South  Omaha,  Nebr.     .    . 
Springfield    Mo  

Springfield,  Ohio  .... 
Superior,  Wis  
Syracuse,  N.Y  

Tacoma,  \Vash  

Trenton  N.J     

Troy,  N.Y  

Utica,  N.Y  
Waterbury,  Conn.     .    .    . 
Waterloo,  Iowa  (West)     . 
Williamsport,  Pa.      .    .    . 
Woonsocket,  R.I.     .    .    . 
York,  Pa  

Youngstown,  Ohio    .    .    . 

1 66 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  11.    OCCUPATIONAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  AMERICAN-  AND 

FOREIGN-BORN    FATHERS.      RELATIVE    FIGURES     PER    1000    IN 

EACH  NATIVITY  GROUP 

FATHERS 


American 

Foreign 

Manual 
Unskilled  laborers    

41 

88 

Semiskilled  laborers  and  machine  operatives  

169 

278 

Artisans  and  foremen  

T.Q8 

^74 

Total  manual      ...         ... 

608 

74° 

Mental 
Clerks  and  salesmen     

III 

60 

Managers,  superintendents,  and  proprietors    

228 

1  80 

Professional  and  financial  workers  

CI 

20 

Total  mental      

7Q2 

260 

Grand  total    ....        ..         

IOOO 

IOOO 

OCCUPATIONS  IN  DIFFERENT  INDUSTRIES 

The  original  returns  showed  the  occupations  of  the  fathers  in 
many  hundreds  of  industries,  and  in  order  to  tabulate  them  the 
data  were  consolidated  under  some  35  industrial  groupings,  fol- 
lowing the  plan  adopted  by  the  office  of  the  United  States  Census. 
The  distribution  of  the  men  by  occupational  classes  in  each  of 
these  industrial  groups  is  shown  in  Table  1 2,  which  gives  the  orig- 
inal data  in  some  detail,  and  again  in  Table  1 3,  in  which  the  same 
facts  are  presented  in  relative  figures  on  the  basis  of  a  total  of 
10,000  after  omitting  those  classified  as  "retired,  not  stated,  or 
none."  In  these  tables  the  first  three  columns  refer  to  the  occu- 
pations we  have  termed  manual,  while  the  next  three  are  those  we 
have  called  mental.  In  the  list  of  35  industrial  groupings  those 
numbered  from  I  to  6  are  industries  of  extraction,  numbers  7  to 
20  are  those  of  transformation,  numbers  21  to  26  are  industries 
of  transportation,  and  numbers  27  to  31  are  those  of  trade. 
Those  numbered  from  32  to  35  come  under  the  general  caption 
of  service. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    167 


TABLE  12.   INDUSTRIAL  AND  OCCUPATIONAL  DISTRIBUTION 
OF  22,027  FATHERS 


INDUSTRIAL  GROUP 

FATHERS  IN 

TOTAL 

Manual  occupations 

Mental  occupations 

o 

| 

1 

1 
•a 

|s 

II 

Unskilled  laborers 

Semiskilled  labor- 
ers and  machine 
operatives 

Artisans  and  fore- 
men 

Clerks  and  sales- 
men 

Managers,  superin- 
tendents, and  pro- 
prietors 

Professional  and 
financial  workers 

i.  Agriculture     

38 

i 
20 

2 

4 
23 

12 
26 
I 

14 

1  66 

2 
10 

17 

7 
9 

28 

63 
10 

40 
7' 

13 

15 
ii 

4 
i 

29 

16 

77 
66 

59 
459 

169 
34 

123 

68 
88 

7 
1042 

394 
28 

898 
294 

7 

12 
297 

3 

1807 

21 
141 

272 

272 
1928 

I79 
41 

250 

203 

27 

158 
159 
II2I 

47 
'S3 
612 

6 

4 
4 
4 

12 

47 

6 
6 

H 

3 
8 

!9 

25 
66 

5 

12 

118 

286 

7 

'5 

2 

4 
368 

21 

3° 
41 

47 
125 

21 

18 
46 

18 
14 

33 
48 
1  80 
26 

95 
94 

I 

2 
I 
2 

24 

3 
I 

2 

8 

9 
3 

25 
4 
37 

9 

15 

I 

I 
I 

360 

2 

36. 
351 

II 
9 

2254 

77 
279 
386 

404 

2734 

377 
109 

460 

302 
146 

242 
1306 
1861 
116 

1207 
1191 

2.  Forestry     

3.  Animal  husbandry      .    . 
4.  Mining  

c.  Ouarrviner  . 

6.  Salt,  oil,  and  natural  gas 
7.  Building  trades  .... 
8.  Chemicals      and     allied 
products      

9.  Clay,  glass,  and  stone    . 
10.  Clothing     

ii.  Food  and  kindred  prod- 
ucts      

12.  Iron  and  steel  and  their 
products     
13.  Leather  and  its  finished 
products      
14.  Liquors  and  beverages  . 
15.  Lumber  and  its  remanu- 
facture    

1  6.  Metals  and  metal  prod- 
ucts  other  than   iron 
and  steel     

17.  Paper 

1  8.  Printing  and  bookbind- 
ing 

19.  Textiles      

20.  Miscellaneous  industries 
21.  Water  transportation 
22.  Road,  street,  and  bridge 
transportation     .    .    . 
23.  Transportation    by   rail- 
road   

i68 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  12.    INDUSTRIAL  AND  OCCUPATIONAL  DISTRIBUTION 
OF  22,027  FATHERS  (CONTINUED) 


FATHERS  IN 

Manual  occupations 

Mental  occupations 

o 

, 

•d" 

INDUSTRIAL  GROUP 

2 

£ 

|.| 

O 

ii 

3  13 

•2  2 

C    0 

rt  ^ 

I 
8 

TOTAL 

3 

!§  1  s 

rt 

"d 

«    C 

•a  o 

1 

JU 

1 

if  E 

o  „ 

11 

"S 

c 

1  «  I 

Is 

u  v 

ill 

q;    W 

*O   cd 

j-    g 

ig 

p 

C/2    O    O 

<  E 

o  e 

S   £    0. 

«  c 

24.  Express  companies    .    . 

— 

5 

4 

18 

I 

— 

— 

28 

25.  Post,  telegraph,  and  tele- 

phone      

2 

c-i 

TO 

IOQ 

2Q 





2  "•"' 

26.  Other  persons  in  trans- 

JO 

jy 

iv/y 

portation     .         ... 

27.  Banking  and  brokerage 

I 

4 

i 

25 

56 

13 

— 

100 

28.  Insurance  and  real  estate 

— 

— 

i 

12 

353 

i 

— 

367 

29.  Wholesale  trade     .    .    . 

22 

3° 

31 

48l 

226 

5 

I 

796 

30.  Retail  trade    

24 

26 

.  ^ 

766 

IQJ.I 

I  7 

c 

28l7 

31.  Other  persons  in  trade  . 

II 

3 

6 

/  VV 

13 

19 

3 

J 

•V*  / 

55 

32.  Public  administration     . 

137 

88 

81 

51 

46 

56 

— 

459 

33.  Public  defense  and  main- 

tenance  of    law    and 

order  

I 

2IQ 

218 

IQ 

41 

22 

-2O 

34.  Professional  service  .    . 

6 

6 

7 

6 

*T  * 

15 

596 

2 

631 

35.  Domestic  and  personal 

service    

27 

2Q2 

"*  "  i 

22 

206 

C 

I 

QQO 

36.  Retired,  not    stated,   or 

•Jr** 

J 

none  

52O 

Q 

Q 
" 

126 

IO 

I 

17.7 

812 

Total  

• 

y 

1  J/ 

1305 

4630 

8499 

2OO9 

4572 

848 

164 

22,O27 

MORE  WORKERS  IN  RETAIL  TRADE  THAN  IN  ANY 
OTHER  GROUP 

An  inspection  of  the  totals  in  Table  1 3  shows  that  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  workers  are  found  in  a  small  number  of  industrial 
groups.  If  we  rank  the  industrial  groups  according  to  the  number 
of  workers  in  each,  we  shall  find  that  two  industrial  groups  include 
more  than  one  fourth  of  all  these  men,  six  include  more  than  one 
half  of  them,  and  fourteen  include  more  than  three  fourths. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    169 


TABLE  13.    INDUSTRIAL  AND  OCCUPATIONAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  21,188  FATHERS. 
RELATIVE  FIGURES  ON  THE  BASIS  OF  10,000  AFTER  OMITTING  THOSE  CLASSI- 
FIED AS  "RETIRED,  NOT  STATED,  OR  NONE" 


INDUSTRIAL  GROUP 

FATHERS  IN 

TOTAL 

Manual  occupations 

Mental  occupations 

2 

I 

1 

c 
£ 

ft 

O    V 

£  a 
£'£ 

•°  8  . 
|ES 

3T3-S 

39? 

M     •    C 

E  M  <u 

0    2    D, 
C/3    u    0 

I 

iff 

T3 

S 

i 

Ii 

1 
1 

Ii 

U  E 

•iU 

£&• 

3T3 

".§ 

Pi 

•  BO 

S-S-s 
Sa  a 

•2  £ 

§  u 

l! 

'3-g 

£  a 
2  g 

P*  <e 

I  .  Agriculture     

18 

10 
I 

2 
II 

5 

12 

78 
I 

8 

4 
4 

'3 

3° 
5 

19 
34 

i 

ii 
ii 

6^ 

I  I 

6 

7 

5 

14 

8 
37 
3i 
28 
217 
80 
16 
58 

32 
4i 
3 
49  i 
186 

13 

424 
139 

2 
25 

2 

14 
12 

I 
42 

IO4 
138 

4 

6 
140 
i 

853 

10 

67 
128 
128 
910 
84 
20 
118 

96 
13 
74 
75 
529 

22 

72 
289 
2 

18 

J5 

20 

38 
I03 

1  66 

3 
i 

2 
2 
2 
6 

22 

3 
3 
7 

i 

4 
9 

12 

31 
2 

6 

56 

9 
5i 

12 

6 

227 

362 

6 
24 

9 
3 
10 

i35 

4 
7 
i 

2 

174 
IO 

14 
20 

22 

59 

IO 

8 

22 

9 

7 
16 

23 
85 

12 

45 
44 

14 

27 
167 
107 
916 
9 

22 

J9 
7 
140 

I 

II 
I 

I 

4 

4 
i 

12 

2 
17 

4 

i 

6 

2 

6 
i 
26 

10 

281 

2 

I63 

17 

1  66 
5 
4 
1064 

36 
132 
182 
191 
1290 
178 

52 
217 

H3 
69 
114 

616 
878 

54 

570 
563 
13 
109 

47 
'73 
376 
1327 
25 
217 

245 
297 

467 

2.  Forestry     

3.  Animal  husbandry      

4.  Mining  

s.  Quarrying  • 

6.  Salt,  oil,  and  natural  gas    .    .     . 
7.  Building  trades  

8.  Chemicals  and  allied  products  . 
9.  Clay,  glass,  and  stone     .... 
10.  Clothing     

n.  Food  and  kindred  products   .    . 
12.  Iron  and  steel  and  their  products 
13.  Leather  and  its  finished  products 
14.  Liquors  and  beverages  .... 
15.  Lumber  and  its  remanufacture  . 
1  6.  Metals  and  metal  products  other 
than  iron  and  steel      .... 
17.  Paper 

1  8.  Printing  and  bookbinding  .    .    . 
19.  Textiles      

20.  Miscellaneous  industries    .    .    . 
21.  Water  transportation      .... 
22.  Road,  street,  and  bridge  trans- 
portation      

23.  Transportation  by  railroad     .    . 
24.  Express  companies    

25.  Post,  telegraph,  and  telephone  . 
26.  Other  persons  in  transportation 
27.  Banking  and  brokerage      .    .    . 
28.  Insurance  and  real  estate  .    .    . 
29.  Wholesale  trade     .             . 

30.  Retail  trade    

31.  Other  persons  in  trade  .    .    .    . 
32.  Public  administration     .... 
33.  Public  defense  and  maintenance 
of  law  and  order     
34.  Professional  service  

35.  Domestic  and  personal  service  . 
Total  

371 

2181 

4007 

891 

2157 

393 

10,000 

170 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


These  facts  are  shown  in  Table  14,  from  which  the  group  entitled 
"  Miscellaneous  Industries  "  has  been  omitted  on  account  of  its 
indefinite  character. 

TABLE  14.   FOURTEEN  INDUSTRIAL  GROUPS  RANKED  IN  ORDER 

OF   NUMBER    OF    FATHERS    IN    EACH.     RELATIVE    FIGURES    ON 

BASIS  OF  10,000.    DERIVED  FROM  TABLE  13 


INDUSTRIAL  GROUP 

FATHERS  IN 
EACH  GROUP 

FATHERS  IN 
EACH  GROUP 
AND  PRECED- 
ING GROUPS 

i    Retail  trade  . 

1  127 

1127 

2    Iron  and  steel  and  their  products     

I2QO 

2617 

3.  Building  trades     

1064 

7681 

4.  Textiles     

616 

42O7 

5.  Road,  street,  and  bridge  transportation    ..... 

C7O 

486? 

6    Transportation  by  railroad   

<;6i 

ZA1O 

7.  Domestic  and  personal  service     

467 

c8Q7 

8.  Wholesale  trade  

^76 

627"? 

9.  Professional  service      

''Q'J 

6C7O 

10.  Public  defense  and  maintenance  of  law  and  order  . 
1  1  .  Lumber  and  its  manufacture    

245 

217 

6815 

7OT2 

1  2    Public  administration   ... 

217 

724Q 

i  i.  Food  and  kindred  products      

IQI 

"7AAO 

14    Clothing   ....         

182 

7622 

By  examining  the  totals  in  the  last  column  of  Table  14,  it  will 
be  noted  that  the  first  two  industries  include  2617  out  of  each 
10,000  fathers,  or  more  than  one  quarter  of  them,  the  first  six 
5430,  or  more  than  half  of  them,  and  the  whole  fourteen  industries 
7622,  or  more  than  three  fourths  of  them. 


SUMMARY 

1.  The  investigation  included  22,027  thirteen-year-old  boys  in 
78  city  school  systems  and  the  fathers  of  the  boys. 

2.  The  boys  were  scattered  through  all  the  grades  of  the  course 
from  the  kindergarten  to  the  last  year  in  the  high  school. 

3.  One  half  of  the  boys  were  in  the  sixth  grade  or  below.  They 
need  a  common-school  education  more  than  they  need  specialized 
industrial  training. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION    171 

4.  In  some  cities  nearly  eight  boys  in  ten  were  in  the  seventh 
grade  or  above,  while  in  others  only  about  one  boy  in  ten  was  in 
the  seventh  grade  or  above.   What  some  cities  have  accomplished, 
others  may  hopefully  strive  for. 

5.  Only  one  father  in  six  was  born  in  the  city  where  he  now 
lives,  and  only  a  few  more  than  one  half  of  the  boys  were  born 
where  they  now  live.    This  has  an  important  bearing  on  the  prop- 
osition that  the  schools  should  shape  their  courses  with  the  pre- 
dominant aim  of  preparing  the  children  to  enter  the  local  industries. 

6.  Only  about  one  half  of  the  fathers  are  engaged  in  industries 
of  the  building  trades  and  manufacturing. 

7.  More  of  the  fathers  are  engaged  in  the  professions  than  are 
in  unskilled  labor. 

8.  Mental  workers  constitute  more  than  one  third  of  all  the 
workers.    This  fact,  and  the  two  preceding  ones,  indicate  the  in- 
accuracy of  the  common  generalization,  to  the  effect  that  only  one 
child  in  ten  in  our  public  schools  will  find  his  life  work  in  an 
intellectual  occupation  while  the  other  nine  are  destined  to  do 
hand  work. 

9.  Foreign-born  fathers  are  relatively  more  numerous  among 
the  manual  workers  and  Americans  among  the  mental  workers, 
but  the  disproportion  is  not  very  great. 

10.  A  large  proportion  of  the  workers  are  engaged  in  a  small 
number  of  industrial  groups.  The  most  numerous  single  group  is 
retail  trade,  and  in  this  group  more  than  one  half  are  proprietors. 


THE    VOCATIONAL    INTERESTS,    STUDY    HABITS, 

AND  AMUSEMENTS   OF  THE  PUPILS   IN   CERTAIN 

HIGH  SCHOOLS  IN  IOWA 

BY  IRVING  KING,  STATE  UNIVERSITY  OF  IOWA 
(From  The  School  Review,  March,  1914) 

Various  studies  have  recently  been  made  of  different  character- 
istics of  the  young  people  attending  public  high  schools.  One  of 
the  best  is  the  well-known  study  of  J.  K.  Van  Denburg,  which  pre- 
sents various  characteristics  of  1000  pupils  who  entered  the  New 
York  high  schools  at  the  same  time,  with  a  view  to  discovering  the 
sort  of  pupils  who  are  eliminated.  From  a  somewhat  different  point 
of  view,  V.  L.  Mangun  recently  studied  the  character  of  pupils 
in  attendance  upon  the  short  courses  provided  by  some  of  the 
Minnesota  high  schools.1 

The  present  writer  has  recently  collected  some  data  regarding 
Iowa  high-school  pupils.  In  part,  the  information  is  similar  to 
Van  Denburg's  and  in  part  goes  farther.  Moreover,  it  is  not  con- 
fined to  entering  classes  but  includes  practically  the  entire  student 
body  of  the  four  schools  studied.  No  attempt,  however,  has  been 
made  thus  far  to  connect  this  information  with  the  subsequent 
records  of  these  pupils. 

The  first  query  made  by  the  writer  was  as  to  the  occupations 
of  the  fathers  of  these  Iowa  high-school  pupils.  The  following 
Table  (I)  presents  the  information  obtained,  together  with  Van 
Denburg's  figures  for  the  1000  New  York  high-school  pupils. 

The  figures  for  these  two  widely  separated  localities  present 
many  striking  similarities,  —  for  example,  in  the  case  of  trade  and 
manufacture  and  artisans, — and  in  most  cases  the  differences  which 
are  noted  may  be  easily  explained.  It  is  not  surprising,  for  instance, 

1  "A  Study  of  the  Eliminated,"  Winona  Normal  Bulletin,  November,  1913. 

172 


DATA  REGARDING  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS      173 

to  find  the  agricultural  class  well  represented  in  the  Iowa  schools. 
Some  of  the  other  differences,  such  as  those  seen  in  the  number 
of  city  and  federal  employees,  those  doing  personal  service,  and 
those  in  the  printing  trades,  suggest  that  the  distribution  of  men 
in  the  various  vocations  is  slightly  different  in  these  smaller  Western 
cities  from  that  in  New  York.  But  the  fact  that  the  children  of 
men  in  professional  work  are  found  more  than  two  and  one  half 
times  as  frequently  in  these  schools  as  in  New  York  indicates  that 
the  schools  in  this  section  are  even  more  democratic  than  in  the 
East.  The  professional  classes,  quite  as  much  as  the  humbler  types 
of  workers,  see  in  the  public  high  school  a  suitable  place  for  the 
education  of  their  children. 


TABLE  I.  THE  FATHERS'  VOCATIONS  OF  1112  PUPILS  IN  THE 
IOWA  CITY,  OTTUMWA,  AND  DUBUQUE  HIGH  SCHOOLS,  1913, 
COMPARED  WITH  THOSE  OF  1000  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS  IN  NEW 

YORK  CITY 


IOWA 

NEW 
YORK 

IOWA 

NEW 
YORK 

Agriculture  

I  ei 

Clerical  

"?o 

^2 

Trade  and  manufacturing    . 
Artisans  
Middlemen  and  office  work- 

268 
156 

227 
15° 

City  and  federal  employees 
Personal  service    .... 
Printing  trades  

40 
18 
10 

61 
4i 

-3C 

ers    

Q2 

1  06 

Unclassified  

ei 

16 

Transportation    

7C 

46 

Blank     

6l 

80 

Professional    .         .... 

Q-3 

^6 

Retired  

17 

IT. 

Semiprofessional 

IQ 

^6 

Dead      

4O 

T<S 

The  high-school  pupils'  vocational  intentions  throw  much  inter- 
esting light  upon  the  pupils  themselves  and  probably  have  much  to 
do,  as  Van  Denburg  found,  with  their  persistence  and  success  in 
their  high-school  work.  The  variety  of  occupations  mentioned 
reveals  to  some  extent  the  breadth  of  outlook  of  these  high-school 
youths.  Van  Denburg  found  forty  different  types  of  work  men- 
tioned by  boys  and  twenty-one  by  the  girls.  The  1109  pupils  in 
Iowa  mention  an  even  larger  number  of  vocations.  This  may  be 
largely  due  to  the  fact  that  the  answers  were  taken  from  the 
upper-class  pupils  as  well  as  from  those  just  entering.  It  may 


174 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


also  indicate  a  slightly  wider  range  of  outlook  among  the  boys 
and  girls  of  central  parts  of  the  country. 

The  following  table  (II)  presents  the  data  from  New  York  and 
from  Iowa  in  parallel  columns  for  comparison.  The  larger  number 
of  different  occupations  mentioned  by  the  Iowa  children  and  the 
smaller  percentage  who  have  no  plans  as  to  their  future  work  are 
the  significant  points  to  note  from  this  table. 


TABLE  II.  VOCATIONAL  CHOICES  OF  1109  PUPILS  IN  THE  THREE 
IOWA  HIGH  SCHOOLS 


IOWA 


NEW  YORK 


Different  occupations  chosen  by  all 

Different  occupations  chosen  by  boys 

Different  occupations  chosen  by  girls  _ 

Different  occupations  chosen  by  2  per  cent  or  more  of 

the  boys  

Different  occupations  chosen  by  2  per  cent  or  more  of 

the  girls 

Undecided  or  blank,  boys 

Undecided  or  blank,  girls 


54 
30 

15 

10 

23  per  cent 
23  per  cent 


40 

21 


41  per  cent 
51  per  cent 


Table  III  enumerates  the  different  vocations  chosen  by  five  or 
more  pupils  of  either  sex  with  numbers  of  New  York  pupils  who 
also  chose  these  vocations.  Here  again  the  general  tendency  is 
the  same.  Teaching  stands  easily  first  with  the  girls  in  both  the 
East  and  the  West,  and  engineering  is  likewise  the  favorite  with 
the  boys.  Van  Denburg  accounts  for  the  large  choice  of  engineer- 
ing in  New  York  by  the  striking  examples  of  great  engineering 
enterprises  which  the  boys  see  on  every  hand  —  the  great  bridges, 
tunnels,  subways,  railway  terminals,  and  lofty  steel  buildings.  But 
an  even  larger  number  of  Iowa  boys  have  an  interest  in  engineering 
—  boys  who  can  at  best  only  have  read  about  these  modern  engi- 
neering wonders.  Does  this  not  indicate  that  there  is  something 
inherently  attractive  to  boy-nature  in  the  engineering  pursuits  ? 
Among  the  vocations  mentioned  by  considerable  numbers  of  Iowa 
girls  but  apparently  not  at  all  by  New  York  girls  are  nursing  and 
domestic  science.  Law  and  business  are  apparently  about  equally 


DATA  REGARDING  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS      175 

attractive  to  both  groups  of  boys ;  but  the  Iowa  boys  far  exceed 
those  of  New  York  in  their  interest  in  medicine,  and  naturally 
also  in  farming. 


TABLE  III.    VOCATIONS  CHOSEN  BY  FIVE  OR  MORE  PUPILS  OF 
EITHER  SEX,  IN  THREE  LARGER  IOWA  HIGH  SCHOOLS 


IOWA 

NEW  YORK 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Teaching      

13 
94 
16 

32 

34 

3° 
33 

8 
8 
16 
8 
8 
5 

i 

5 
6 
6 

261 
85 

24 

3 

4 
23 

22 

8 

12 

6 
i 

5 
6 

II 

78 
4 
24 
i 

7 
36 
i 

2 

3 

2 

3 

I 
7 

168 

55 

2 
I 

4 
19. 

i 

2 

3 
I 

•2 

Engineering     

Stenography  and  bookkeeping 
Law      

Farming                     

Nursing    

Medicine      

Business       

Dentistry      

Pharmacy         

Salesman  '  

Mechanic     

Army  or  navy  

Labor  

Domestic  science     

Housekeeping      

Librarian      

Physical  training      
Civil  service     

Office  work  

Architecture     

Millinery  

Table  V  shows  how  much  alike  the  choices  of  the  two  groups 
are,  for  only  three  vocations  are  mentioned  by  more  than  2  per 
cent  of  the  New  York  children  which  are  not  also  chosen  by  more 
than  2  per  cent  of  the  Iowa  pupils. 

Van  Denburg  found  a  close  relationship  between  the  high-school 
student's  estimate  of  the  value  of  high-school  work  and  the  length 
of  his  stay  in  high  school.  For  instance,  only  47  per  cent  of  those 
1000  children  stated  that  they  regarded  a  high-school  education 


76 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  IV.    DISTRIBUTION  OF  VOCATIONAL  CHOICES  IN  THREE 
SMALL  HIGH  SCHOOLS 

(The  narrow  range  as  compared  with  that  of  the  larger  schools  is  significant.) 


LISBON 

WEST  BRANCH 

GRANITE  FALLS, 
MINN. 

TOTALS 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Teacher  

I 

18 

12 

I 

-JQ 

2 

6q 

Farmer     

6 

I  e 

ts 

Engineer      .... 

4 

— 

3 



IO 



17 

— 

Nurse  

2 

A 

6 

Merchant      .... 

i 

— 



2 

3 

Mechanic      .... 

3 



— 



I 



4 

— 

Bookkeeper      .     .     . 

— 

— 

I 

— 

— 

5 

i 

5 

Stenographer    .     .     . 

— 

— 

— 

I 

— 

4 

— 

5 

Scattering     .... 

2 

I 

I 

4 

9 

ii 

12 

16 

Undecided   .... 

2 

13 

2 

18 

9 

5 

13 

36 

Total    

8? 

137 

TABLE  V.    VOCATIONS    MENTIONED   BY  2   PER   CENT   OR   MORE 

NEW    YORK    HIGH-SCHOOL    STUDENTS,    BUT    MENTIONED    BY 

LESS  THAN  2  PER  CENT  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  STUDENTS 


BOYS 

GIRLS 

Electrician    

Designer  

6 

Dressmaker  

7 

as  necessary  for  their  purposes  in  life ;  the  rest  answered  that  it 
was  not  necessary  or  that  they  were  uncertain  as  to  its  value.  In 
following  the  high-school  histories  of  these  pupils  Van  Denburg 
found  that  the  expectancy  of  staying  in  and  completing  the  course 
was  much  higher  with  those  answering  "yes"  to  both  questions 
than  with  those  answering  "no"  or  "undecided." 
The  following  are  the  exact  figures  : 

50  per  cent  of  the  boys  who  answer  "  yes  "  stay  two  years. 

50  per  cent  of  the  girls  who  answer  "  yes  "  stay  three  years. 

50  per  cent  of  the  boys  and  girls  who  answer  "  no  "  do  not  stay  one  year. 


DATA  REGARDING  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS      177 


TABLE  VI.    IOWA  PUPILS'  ESTIMATES  OF  THE  VALUE  OF 
HIGH-SCHOOL  AND  COLLEGE  WORK 


YES 

No 

UNCERTAIN 

TOTALS 

PERCENTAGE 
YES 

Are  four  years  in  high  f._ 

school     necessary  -1  _.- 
,                             ,     Girls 
for  your  purpose  ?  |_ 

354 
336 

93 
"3 

87 
84 

534 
533 

66 
63 

Do    you    intend    to  f  _. 

j  e               B°ys 

spend   four   years  <  _., 
....       u     i»        Girls 
in  high  school  ?      [_ 

470 
534 

44 
47 

34 
33 

548 
614 

85 
87 

Is  a  college   educa-  f^, 
,        Boys 
tion  necessary  for-<  _.• 
\           Girls 
your  purpose  r         (^ 

337 
297 

"3 
206 

87 
114 

537 
617 

63 

48 

In  Table  VII  are  presented  some  figures  as  to  studies  in  which 
the  students  of  four  large  Iowa  high  schools  were  most  interested, 
least  interested,  and  the  ones  in  which  failures  were  reported.  It 
was  thought  in  gathering  this  information  that  there  might  be  some 
relation  between  a  student's  school  interests,  his  vocational  pref- 
erence, and  perhaps  even  his  intention  to  remain  in  high  school 
for  the  entire  course.  We  were  not  able  to  detect  any  such  relation- 
ships from  the  data  as  they  came  to  us  but  the  figures  by  themselves 
are  of  some  significance. 

The  difference  between  boys  and  girls  in  regard  to  English, 
Latin,  and  German  is  especially  interesting.  Several  questions 
arise  in  one's  mind.  For  example  :  Is  the  girls'  preference  for 
these  subjects  due  to  the  fact  that  the  intrinsic  quality  of  the  sub- 
jects makes  more  of  an  appeal  to  the  girl-mind  than  to  the  boy- 
mind,  or  does  the  fact  that  these  subjects  are  taught  by  women 
mean  that  they  tend  to  be  presented  in  ways  better  suited  to  arouse 
the  girls'  interest  than  the  boys'  ?  Both  of  these  factors  probably 
have  their  influence.  On  the  other  hand,  boys  surpass  girls  in  their 
interest  in  mathematics,  history,  and  physical  sciences,  judged  both 
by  positive  preference  and  by  the  much  smaller  numbers  of  boys 
who  select  these  subjects  as  those  in  which  they  are  least  interested. 
From  the  small  numbers  of  each  sex  who  mention  commercial 
subjects,  manual  training,  and  domestic  science  as  most  interesting 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


we  should  judge  either  that  they  are  not  largely  elected  or  are  not 
taught,  thus  far,  so  as  to  make  a  very  definite  appeal  to  children 
of  high-school  age.  Whether  one  or  both  of  these  conditions  be 
true,  it  indicates  that  these  so-called  practical  and  semivocational 
subjects  do  not  thus  far  awaken  the  interest  in  the  pupils  of  these 
cities  that  the  older  and  better  standardized  subjects  are  able  to  do. 


TABLE  VII.1    STUDIES  IN  WHICH  THE  HIGH-SCHOOL  STUDENTS 
OF  IOWA  CITY,  DUBUQUE,  BURLINGTON,  AND  OTTUMWA  ARE: 


MOST 
INTERESTED 

LEAST 
INTERESTED 

FAILURES 
REPORTED 

English    

/  Boys 

179 

146 

54 

Latin   

\Giris 

/Boys 

321 
64 

118 
1  06 

44 
8? 

'  \Girls 
/Boys 

154 
69 

86 
65 

53 
79 

Mathematics      

{Girls 
/Boys 

192 
286 

78 

120 

5° 
*43 

History    

\Girls 
/Boys 

237 
158 

296 

88 

148 

48 

Physical  science    . 

\Girls 
/Boys 

153 
*37 

1  60 
26 

53 
ii 

Bioloerv    • 

\Girls 
/Boys 

89 
3i 

46 
19 

17 
4 

Commercial      

\Girls 
/Boys 

38 
70 

13 

10 

2 

9 

Manual  training    . 

\  Girls 
/Boys 

63 

55 

4 
5 

6 
i 

Domestic  science       .     .     . 

\Girls 
Girls 

64 

6 
10 

A 

As  to  failures,  the  various  mathematical  subjects  easily  outrank 
all  others.  This  may  be  due  to  less  efficient  teaching,  to  too  great 
difficulty  in  the  subjects,  or  to  too  little  willingness  of  large  numbers 
of  high-school  pupils  to  overcome  the  difficulties  that  they  present. 

1  In  the  preceding  tables  data  are  given  from  three  schools.  In  this  and  the  following 
tables  four  schools  are  reported. 


DATA  REGARDING  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS      179 

In  connection  with  these  figures  regarding  failures,  which  are 
based  solely  upon  the  pupils'  own  reports  and  which  therefore 
are  subject  to  more  or  less  error  (probably  in  most  cases  in  the 
pupils'  favor),  the  following  data  are  of  interest.  It  is  a  com- 
parison of  the  failures  and  successes  by  subjects  from  the  official 
records  of  over  1000  pupils  in  23  successive  classes  in  the  Iowa 
City  High  School. 

From  Table  VIII,  covering  an  eleven-year  period  for  a  single 
high  school,  it  appears  from  the  failures  recorded  that  algebra 
ranks  first  in  difficulty,  Latin  is  second,  and  geometry  a  close 
third.  While  no  percentages  can  be  computed  from  Table  VIII 
for  exact  comparison  with  the  data  in  Table  VII,  there  is  a  striking 
similarity  in  the  relative  difficulty  of  subjects  as  there  presented. 


TABLE    VIII.     THE    NUMBER    OF    PASSING    GRADES     MADE    IN 

VARIOUS  SUBJECTS  BY  1042  PUPILS  IN  23  SUCCESSIVE  CLASSES 

IN  THE  IOWA  CITY  HIGH  SCHOOL 


PASSING 
GRADES 

FAILURES 

PERCENTAGE 
OF  FAILURES 

English  including  literature  

AC.AI 

144 

1  1 

Algebra      

2I4O 

40.8 

10 

Geometry   

1  506 

2  C1 

14 

History  and  civics  

"U67 

-3Q7 

I  I 

Latin      

260'? 

468 

I  c 

German       

1271 

8? 

6 

Commercial  work    

644 

A  C 

8 

Physical  sciences     

1189 

III 

Biological  sciences  

ion 

8-> 

8 

Manual  training  

12 

c 

The  questionnaire  which  yielded  the  data  given  above  for  the 
four  Iowa  high  schools  also  asked  for  a  report  from  each  student 
as  to  the  approximate  number  of  hours  spent  in  study  outside  of 
school  hours.  Practically  all  high-school  officials  agree  in  thinking 
that  some  outside  study  is  both  desirable  and  necessary,  unless 
there  is  special  opportunity  provided  by  the  school  for  supervised 
study  during  school  hours,  and  this  notwithstanding  the  arguments 
recently  presented  in  certain  popular  magazines  against  home  study. 


i8o 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


These  pupils  were  asked  to  check  the  following  estimates,  which 
most  nearly  represented  the  amount  of  time  spent  per  week  in 
home  study : 

0-4,  5-8,  9-12,  13-16,  17-20 

Table  IX  gives  the  answers  of  1431  pupils  of  four  schools. 
Here,  as  in  the  answers  to  the  previous  questions,  there  is  doubtless 
more  or  less  inaccuracy,  with  the  probabilities  lying  on  the  side  of 
an  over-  rather  than  an  under-estimate.  The  correspondence  in  the 
times  given  by  the  students  of  the  different  schools  is  very  striking, 
and  indicates  that  in  spite  of  errors  in  individual  cases  these  esti- 
mates represent  fairly  the  distribution  of  Iowa  high-school  pupils 
as  to  the  amount  of  time  spent  in  home  study.  Five  to  eight  hours 
of  home  study  per  week  is  the  most  common  report.  Whether  this 
is  enough  time  for  the  average  pupil,  each  high-school  principal 


TABLE  IX.    HOURS  OF  STUDY  PER  WEEK  OUTSIDE  OF  SCHOOL 
(FOUR  IOWA  HIGH  SCHOOLS) 


0-4 

5-8 

9-12 

13-16 

17-20 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Dubuque      .     .     . 

13 

18 

123 

100 

27 

48 

10 

14 

2 

3 

Iowa  City    .     .     . 

21 

20 

91 

"5 

5° 

69 

II 

3° 

8 

3 

Ottumwa      .     .     . 

8 

13 

96 

118 

42 

88 

II 

27 

i 

6 

Burlington  .     .     . 

17 

20 

5i 

77 

23 

32 

4 

15 

2 

4 

Totals.     .     .     . 

59 

71 

361 

410 

142 

237 

36 

86 

13 

16 

must  judge  for  himself.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  of  some  importance  in 
dealing  with  the  high-school  situation  to  know  the  actual  distri- 
bution of  our  pupils  in  this  matter  of  home  study.  It  was  thought 
that  there  might  be  some  relation  between  success  in  studies  and 
amount  of  home  study.  The  reports  of  244  Burlington  pupils  in 
the  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth  grades  were  studied  with  this  ques- 
tion in  mind,  but  there  was  no  clear  relationship  apparent  from  the 
data  furnished  by  the  students.  The  results  were  as  follows  : 


DATA  REGARDING  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS      181 


TABLE  X 


HOURS  PER  WEEK  IN  HOME  STUDY 

PERCENTAGE  FAILING 
ONE  OR  MORE  TIMES 

PERCENTAGE  FAILING 
Two  OR  MORE  TIMES 

O—    A. 

S6 

•3-1 

t    8 

AC 

2Q 

Q—  12      . 

C4 

16 

13-16     ...       

17 

17 

17—  2O     . 

o 

o 

While  there  is  no  clear  relationship  in  terms  of  mere  failures, 
there  is,  no  doubt,  a  relationship  in  terms  of  the  quality  of  work 
done  if  we  but  had  its  measure  in  actual  grades.  This  is  a  point 
upon  which  we  must  for  the  present  defer  a  definite  answer. 

The  pupils  in  these  four  Iowa  schools  reported  themselves  as 
spending  entire  evenings  per  week  at  home,  as  follows : 

TABLE  XI.    ENTIRE  EVENINGS   PER  WEEK   SPENT  AT  HOME  AS 
REPORTED  BY  PUPILS  OF  FOUR  LARGE  IOWA  HIGH  SCHOOLS 


EVENINGS 

TOTAL 

7 

6 

5 

4 

3 

2 

1 

0 

1 

1 

3 

1 

pa 

v\ 

3 

& 

pq 

J£ 

B 

3 

1 

— 

•5 

& 

& 

3 

| 

PQ 

5 

1 

n 

3 

1 

H 

5 

& 
o 

CO 

5 

12 

6 
5 

7 

34 
'9 
10 

'4 

17 
13 

6 

9 

24 

18 
14 

36 

39 
28 
3> 

24 

53 
42 
45 
78 

3° 
40 
35 
58 

5° 
59 
53 

94 

43 

43 
'9 

4" 

25 

3° 

12 

37 

23 
27 
'5 
'9 

II 

(. 

2 

7 

6 

IO 

3 

4 

i 
i 

0 

1 

ii 
7 
4 
9 

4 

0 

2 
O 

- 

- 

Dubuque      

Ottumwa      

Totals   

3<> 

77 

45 

92 

122 

2lS 

'43 

2S<> 

145 

'"4 

84 

26 

23 

3 

3i 

6 

623 

7X2 

8 

9 

24 

28 

18 

8 

2 

3 

- 

SIMILAR  REPORT  FROM  Two  SMALL  SCHOOLS 


EVENINGS 

TOTAL 

7 

6 

5 

4 

3 

2 

1 

0 

>, 
| 

3 

1 
PQ 

c 

3 

1 

a 

~C 

5 

1 

pa 

~ 

3 

1 

5 

1 
23 

*n 

3 

I 

s 

1 

e 

1 

•S 

3 

West  Branch    

4 

i 

3 

5 

2 

8 
5 

8 
4 

a 

7 

2 
2 

7 
5 

4 
i 

4 

7 

I 
3 

5 

I 

I 

3 

4 

s 

• 

23 

21 

33 
35 

Lisbon     

4 

4 

7 

13 

12 

IS 

4 

12 

5 

ii 

4 

5 

i 

1 

7 

7 

14 

66 

182 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


It  will  be  seen  from  the  table  that  the  boys  most  commonly 
report  three  and  four  evenings  out  of  the  week  at  home  and  the 
girls  four  and  five.  Not  many  of  us  will  feel  that  this  report  is 
altogether  auspicious  for  the  good  of  the  high-school  pupils.  When 
the  number  of  evenings  per  week  spent  at  home  falls  below  five 
on  the  average,  one  cannot  help  but  feel  that  home  life  and  home 
influences  are  playing  too  little  part  in  the  lives  of  these  adoles- 
cents. Fifty-nine  per  cent  spend  four  evenings  or  less  at  home. 

In  order  to  see  what  relation"  might  exist  between  success  in 
school  and  evenings  at  home  the  answers  of  the  entire  1400  pupils 
were  reexamined  and  the  number  of  failures  reported  by  them  was 
distributed  according  to  the  entire  evenings  per  week  which  they 
report  themselves  as  spending  at  home.  Tables  XII  and  XIII 
give  the  results  of  this  inquiry. 

Pupils  reported  as  spending  4-7  entire  evenings  per  week  at 
home  average  55  failures  per  hundred  pupils. 

Pupils  reported  as  spending  0-3  evenings  per  week  at  home 
average  135  failures  per  hundred  pupils. 

TABLE  XII.   CORRELATION  BETWEEN  NUMBER  OF  PUPILS  FAIL- 
ING ONE  OR  MORE  TIMES  IN  STUDIES  AND  ENTIRE  EVENINGS 
SPENT  AT  HOME  PER  WEEK 


EVENINGS 

7 

6 

5 

4 

3 

2 

i 

0 

Iowa  City     .          .   (No.  of  cases     .     . 

46 

42 

86 

80 

68 

34 

7 

'5 

(^  Percentage  failing 

14 

36 

27 

28 

50 

64 

70 

74 

Dubuque                 .    (No.  of  cases      .     . 
(^Percentage  failing 

25 

12 

39 

20 

81 
3° 

99 
34 

73 
5° 

35 
46 

it 

55 

7 
86 

Burlington   .          .   (No.  of  cases      .     . 
(_  Percentage  failing 

15 

47 

28 
20 

66 

47 

78 
48 

58 

17 
65 

3 

100 

6 
67 

Ottumwa                .   (No.  of  cases      .     . 

21 

46 

102 

132 

77 

26 

5 

9 

(^  Percentage  failing 

48 

37 

36 

47 

5i 

51 

60 

45 

A  recent  study  of  380  delinquent  pupils  in  the  Minneapolis 
high  schools l  revealed  the  fact  that  46  per  cent  of  them  confessed 

l  W.  W.  Hobbs,  "  An  Inquiry  into  the  Cause  of  Student  Delinquency  in  the  Minneapolis 
High  Schools,"  School  Review,  November,  1912. 


DATA  REGARDING  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS      183 


TABLE    XIII.     DISTRIBUTION    OF    NUMBER    OF    FAILURES    PER 
HUNDRED   PUPILS  ACCORDING  TO   EVENINGS  AT  HOME 


ENTIRE  EVENINGS  AT  HOME 

7 

6 

5 

4 

3 

2 

i 

0 

No.  of  failures  per  100  pupils  — 
Iowa  City  

2O 

24 
80 
76 

48 
23 

31 
69 

53 
51 
98 

5i 

59 
55 
105 

93 

89 
100 

180 

IOO 

86 
117 
206 
104 

114 
72 
300 
1  20 

i53 
'57 
1  66 
90 

Dubuque     
Burlington  

Ottumwa     

Averages     .     . 

5° 

43 

58 

78 

116 

128 

152 

MS 

that  they  were  "  out  "  the  larger  share  of  evenings  in  a  week.  No 
data  were  there  collected  as  to  the  home-staying  habits  of  the  pupils 
whose  school  work  was  up  to  grade,  but  in  the  light  of  the  returns 
from  the  Iowa  high  schools  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  there  was  a 
direct  relation  between  the  delinquency  of  those  Minneapolis  pupils 
and  the  little  time  they  spent  at  home. 

The  preceding  information  regarding  these  1400  pupils  in  the 
four  Iowa  high  schools  relates  more  or  less  directly  to  their  school 
work  and  school  interests.  It  is  interesting  to  know,  in  connection 
with  this,  something  of  what  these  pupils  are  doing  aside  from  their 
school  work,  whether  they  help  at  home,  whether  they  earn  money 
or  not,  and  the  extent  of  their  participation  in  certain  forms  of 
amusement. 

The  following  table  (XIV)  gives  the  answers  to  the  question, 
Do  you  have  work  at  home  ?  The  data  are  given  separately  for 
each  city  in  order  to  show  how  far  there  is  any  uniformity  in  this 
particular. 

The  fact  that  the  girls  slightly  exceed  the  boys  in  helping  with 
home  work  is  natural  in  view  of  the  sort  of  work  that  is  usually 
available  for  children  in  city  homes.  It  is  encouraging  for  those 
who  believe  that  children  should  learn  to  participate  in  home 
duties  to  note  the  large  percentage  of  these  pupils  who  report 
such  participation.  In  the  above-mentioned  study  of  380  delin- 
quent pupils  in  the  Minneapolis  high  schools  it  was  found  that  the 
number  who  reported  home  work  of  any  kind  was  much  less  than 


1 84 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  XIV.    DO  YOU  HAVE  WORK  AT  HOME? 


Y 

ES 

N 

o 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Iowa  City    
Dubuque      

I56 
140 

197 
141 

33 

24 

32 

14 

Burlington  

8? 

142 

IO 

2O 

Ottumwa      

154 

242 

7 

16 

537 
Yes,  88 

724 
per  cent 

74 
No,  12 

IO2 

per  cent 

Grand  total   .... 

1426 

this.  Whether,  however,  there  is  any  general  connection  between 
lack  of  home  work  and  delinquency  is  a  subject  demanding  further 
investigation  before  it  can  be  definitely  answered.  It  is  natural 
to  suppose  that  a  complete  absence  of  all  responsibility  at  home 
might  lead  to  an  excess  of  outside  activities  which  would  interfere 
materially  with  school  success.  The  only  data  from  which  we  can 
infer  school  standing  of  these  Iowa  pupils  are  the  number  of  semester 
failures  reported  by  each  pupil,  and  there  was  no  apparent  relation 
between  these  failures  and  .home  work  or  lack  of  it. 

The  distribution  of  time  spent  at  home  work  by  these  pupils 
was  given  by  them  as  follows  : 

TABLE  XV.    TIME  PER  DAY  SPENT  BY  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL 
PUPILS   AT  HOME  WORK 


0 

LESS  THAN  1  HOUR 

1-2  HOURS 

3-4  HOURS 

5-6  HOURS 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

74 

IO2 

51 

69 

263 

343 

67 

"3 

46 

54 

The  question  next  arises,  Do  any  of  these  pupils,  who  do  not 
work  at  home,  have  work  of  some  sort  outside  of  home  ?  Some 
of  these  do,  but  it  happens  quite  as  frequently  that  they  do  no 
work  of  any  kind,  while  those  who  report  home  work  also  quite  as 
often  report  that  they  work  outside  also.  In  answer  to  the  question, 


DATA  REGARDING  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS      185 

Do  you  earn  money  outside  of  school  ?  the  following  data  were 
secured  :  Yes  :  boys,  426  ;  girls,  192  ;  No  :  boys,  205  ;  girls,  665  ; 
68  per  cent  of  the  boys  and  22  per  cent  of  the  girls  reporting  that 
they  earn  money  in  one  way  or  another  outside  of  school. 

It  is  of  some  interest  to  know  the  kinds  of  work  mentioned  by 
these  pupils.  This  information  is  given  in  Tables  XVI  and  XVII. 

The  considerable  variety  of  work  which  high-school  pupils  in 
these  cities  find  to  do  is  significant.  While  a  number  of  these 
employments  would  have  to  be  classed  as  "juvenile  occupations  " 
and  as  not  leading  anywhere  in  particular,  a  "  juvenile  occupation  " 
is  not  altogether  to  be  condemned  in  these  cases.  When  a  boy 
or  girl  is  in  school,  such  a  type  of  work,  even  though  it  does  not 
lead  directly  to  any  future  vocation,  is  a  steadying  influence  upon  the 
youngster,  serving  to  give  a  little  experience  in  personal  responsi- 
bility and  in  the  practical  side  of  life.  The  experience  of  earning 
money  for  oneself,  even  in  a  temporary  employment,  is  a  prepara- 
tion for  future  work  that  is  decidedly  worth  while. 

TABLE  XVI.    KINDS  OF  WORK  FOR  WHICH  MONEY  IS  EARNED. 
MENTIONED  BY  TWO  OR  MORE  PUPILS 

Clerking 92       Usher 4 

Odd  jobs 70       Picture  show 4 

Helping  at  home 48       Printing 3 

Delivering  papers 44       Reporting 3 

Farming 19       Telephone  office 3 

Music  teaching 16      Elevator  boy 3 

Vacation  work 15  Automobile  and   motor  and  cycle 

Music  and  singing 14          repairs 3 

Collecting 12       Distributing  ads 3 

Delivery  boy 1 1       In  bank 3 

Shop  and  office 10       Tailor 3 

Caring  for  furnace 10  Engineering  gang     .......  2 

Factory,  mill,  etc 10       Painter 2 

Canvassing 9       Hunting 2 

Office  attendant 9       Fancy  work 2 

Chauffeur 8       Railroad  office 2 

Photography 8       Newspaper  office 2 

Artist 6       Sheet  metal 2 

Poultry 6       Mechanic 2 

Waiter .  5       Baking 2 

Barber 5       Y.M.C.A 2 

Janitor 5       Salesman 2 


1 86 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  XVII.    KINDS  OF  WORK  MENTIONED  BY  ONE  PUPIL  ONLY 


Reading  gas  meters 

Millinery 

Staying  with  neighbors  nights 

Checking 

Making  pennants 

Selling  cream 

Selling  milk 

Typewriting 

Dentist's  office 

Selling  peanuts 

Running  a  boat 

Soda  fountain 

Electrical  work 

Helping  neighbors 

Auto  sales 

Substitute  teacher 


Fishing 

Delivering  eggs 

Mowing  lawns 

Pumping  church  organ 

Plumbing 

Garage 

Window-trimming 

Sewing 

Pantatorium 

Messenger 

Greenhouse 

Engineer 

Artist's  model 

Carpentry 

Library  work 


TABLE  XVIII.    DIFFERENT  KINDS  OF  WORK  MENTIONED  BY 
BOYS  AND  GIRLS 


BOYS 

GIRLS 

COMBINED 

Iowa  City    

17 

Dubuque      

^6 

6 

in 

Ottumwa      

16 

17 

44 

Burlington  

2T, 

I  e 

1C 

It  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  many  high-school  pupils,  with 
the  best  part  of  their  day  given  up  to  school  work,  should  find  much 
time  outside  to  spend  in  preparing  for  any  particular  vocation. 
And  yet  out  of  the  618  who  report  themselves  as  earning  money, 
36,  or  nearly  6  per  cent,  are  doing  outside  work  more  or  less  directly 
related  to  what  they  are  planning  to  do  when  they  leave  school. 
Table  XIX  shows  just  what  these  employments  are. 

In  view,  however,  of  the  present  interest  in  vocational  educa- 
tion, the  question  may  be  raised  whether  the  conditions  here  shown 
are  as  favorable  for  high-school  boys  and  girls  as  they  should  be. 
Should  not  the  school  and  the  community  attempt  to  provide  more 
opportunity  for  these  pupils  to  get  work  which  will  minister  more 
directly  to  their  vocational  interests  ?  As  long  as  the  school  studies 


DATA  REGARDING  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS      187 

TABLE  XIX.    CORRELATION  BETWEEN  OUTSIDE  WORK  FOR  PAY 
AND  VOCATIONAL  INTENTIONS 

Collection i  Bank 2 

Office  work i  Manufacturing  and  artisan       ...  2 

Teaching i  Engineering 2 

Domestic  science  and  art  ....  4  Auto  repair I 

Clerking 2  Tailoring I 

Teaching  music 6  Dentist's  office .  i 

Singing  and  music 4  Railroad  office I 

Farming 4  Artists 2 

Salesmanship i 

pursued  by  these  pupils  are  so  largely  of  the  purely  "  liberal "  or 
cultural  type  there  can,  of  course,  be  little  relationship  between 
school  work  itself  and  work  outside.  Furthermore,  it  must  be 
recognized  that  many  types  of  vocational  interest,  such  as  engi- 
neering, law,  medicine,  or  teaching,  could  not  usually  find  any 
opportunity  for  expression  during  the  school  years.  But  there  are 
also  many  interests  which  might  find  expression  while  the  pupil  is 
in  school.  To  bring  about  such  a  connection,  the  school  on  its 
part  would  have  to  give  more  attention  to  cultivating  the  vocational 
interests  of  its  pupils.  With  no  special  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
school  to  cultivate  such  an  intelligent  insight  into  the  diverse 
opportunities  of  the  modern  world,  the  range  of  interests  already 
possessed  by  these  Iowa  pupils  is  comparatively  limited,  as  we  saw 
above  in  Table  III.  If  the  school  would  undertake  to  enlighten 
its  pupils  systematically  as  to  vocational  opportunities,  and  if  it 
would  also  provide  more  vocational  studies  and  give  more  attention 
to  the  practical  relationships  involved  in  the  ordinary  studies,  the 
pupil  would  be  provided  with  a  better  basis  on  which  to  go  out  into 
his  community  and  choose  his  work. 

But  the  community  also  should  do  something,  perhaps  under 
the  leadership  of  the  school.  The  modern  community  should  be 
led  to  take  a  more  direct  interest  in  the  future  of  its  children  than 
is  expressed  in  simply  providing  them  with  school  opportunities. 
People  engaged  in  different  lines  of  work  should  feel  a  responsibility 
for  providing  ways  for  boys  and  girls  who  are  inclined  in  various 
directions  to  gain  a  little  experience  in  the  work  that  interests 
them  while  they  are  going  to  school. 


188 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


The  industrial  schools  have  already  begun  to  work  out  and  apply 
various  schemes  of  part-time  employment  in  the  trades  for  their 
pupils,  but  what  we  have  in  mind  here  is  a  more  general  and  less 
intensive  application  of  the  idea.  Not  that  the  boy  in  the  ordinary 
high  school  who  wishes  to  work  shall  be  employed  in  some  trade 
—  for  example,  in  alternate  weeks  —  but  rather  that  opportunities 
shall  be  carefully  developed  in  every  community  whereby  many 
such  boys  and  even  girls  shall  gain  some  slight  contact  with  dif- 
ferent vocations  in  their  outside  work.  Such  contact  should  give 
the  youngster  not  merely  a  chance  to  make  a  little  money  but  also 
an  insight  into,  and  a  practical  appreciation  of,  the  requirements 
of  the  vocation  he  wishes  later  to  follow. 

As  to  the  social  and  recreational  interests  of  these  1400  Iowa 
high-school  pupils,  Table  XX  summarizes  the  returns  as  to  the 
number  of  parties,  moving-picture  shows,  and  theaters  per  month 
which  they  report  themselves  as  attending.  The  reports  from 
different  cities  are  fairly  uniform. 


TABLE  XX 
PARTIES  PER  MONTH  ATTENDED  BY  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS 


NONE  OR 

LESS 
THAN  1 

i 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8  OR 
MORE 

1 

« 

"C 

5 

1 

« 

T3 

o 

I 

•fi 
o 

>, 
o 

M 

"C 
O 

1 

03 

" 

o 

| 

PQ 

TH 

3 

1 
A 

V- 

o 

1 

A 

O 

I 

A 

| 

5 

196 

161 

117 

199 

128 

216 

56 

94 

36 

58 

22 

3i 

10 

23 

2 

2 

9 

4 

Percentage  . 

26 

23 

25 

II 

8 

4 

2 

o-3 

i 

About  48  per  cent  attend  1-2  parties  per  month. 

About  26  per  cent  attend  more  than  2  parties  per  month. 

About  26  per  cent  attend  none  or  less  than  i  party  per  month. 

MOVING-PICTURE   SHOWS   PER   MONTH 


0 

1-3 

4-6 

7-9 

10-15 

16  OR  MORE 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

91 

I76 

153 

265 

I8S 

'97 

57 

63 

71 

64 

53 

43 

DATA  REGARDING  IOWA  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS      189 


THEATERS  ATTENDED  PER  MONTH 


NONE  OR 

LESS 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

THAN  1 

1 

01 

"C 

I 

_« 

| 

s 

S2. 
o 

S 

1 

•n 

1 

*C 

& 

•c 

£ 

•S 

| 

•3 

« 

O 

PP 

O 

a 

O 

« 

O 

pa 

O 

A 

O 

<n 

O 

03 

6 

pa 

O 

109 

230 

IS 

'34 

IOI 

138 

58 

61 

75 

85 

23 

19 

26 

19 

9 

4 

3° 

16 

As  in  the  case  of  preceding  tables,  the  reader  will  have  to  inter- 
pret these  figures  for  himself.  Possibly  no  one  of  these  diversions, 
by  itself,  is  indulged  in  by  large  numbers  to  excess,  but  taken 
together  they  represent  a  considerable  expenditure  of  time  in  at 
least  three  forms  of  amusement.  In  most  cases  the  pupil  who  goes 
to  few  or  no  parties  does  not  indulge  in  the  other  forms  of  amuse- 
ment. The  general  tendency  is  for  all  to  be  represented  in  about 
the  same  proportion  in  the  pupils  who  do  participate  at  all.  These 
figures  will  be  taken  by  some  as  a  proof  of  the  statement  often 
made  that  it  is  not  the  school  work  as  such  which  is  injurious  to 
the  health  of  the  ordinary  adolescent  but  that  he  suffers  most  from 
the  multiplicity  of  his  outside  interests. 


AN  INQUIRY  INTO  VOCATIONAL  AIMS  OF  HIGH- 
SCHOOL  PUPILS 

BY  Miss  BESSIE  D.  DAVIS,  OF  THE  SOMERVILLE  HIGH  SCHOOL 

(From  a  tentative  report  to  the  superintendent  of  schools,  Somerville,  Mass., 
and  to  the  Vocation  Bureau  of  Boston) 

QUESTIONNAIRE  FOR  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS 

Name  Age  Yrs.  Mos.  Class  Room 

1 .  Do  you  expect  to  complete  a  course  of  four  years  in  the  high  school  ? 

2.  If  not,  how  many  years  do  you  expect  to  stay? 

3.  If  you  do  not  expect  to  remain  four  years,  what  is  the  reason- — 

(a)  Financial  conditions? 

(b)  Lack  of  success  in  school  work  ? 

(c)  Desire  to  go  to  work  ? 
(</)  Loss  of  interest  ? 

4.  Please  underline  the  course  which  you  are  now  taking : 

(a)  General ;  (b)  College  Preparatory ;  (c)  Manual  Arts ;  (</)  Commer- 
cial ;  (e)  two-year  Commercial. 

5.  What  led  you  to  choose  this  course  — 

(a)  Advice  of  parents,  teachers,  friends  ? 

(b)  Success  of  others  r 

(c)  Belief  in  your  personal  qualifications  and  ability  for  the  work  of  this 

course  ? 

6.  Do  you  know  what  studies  are  included  in  this  course  — 

(a)  In  the  first  year  ? 

(b)  In  the  second  year  ? 

(c)  In  the  third  year? 

(d)  In  the  fourth  year? 

7.  What  qualifications  do  you  think  you  have  for  the  work  of  this  course  ? 

8.  What  line  of  work  do  you  intend  to  follow  after  you  leave  high  school  ? 

9.  What  do  you  understand  to  be  the  requirements  of  this  work  ? 

10.  How  have  you  ascertained  these  requirements? 

11.  Is  this  the  work  which  you  really  desire  to  do  ? 

190 


VOCATIONAL  AIMS  OF  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS     191 

1 2.  What  have  your  parents  advised  ? 

13.  To  what  extent,  if  any,  have  possible  financial  benefits  influenced  your 

choice  ? 

14.  If  this  is  not  the  work  which  you  really  desire  to  do,  why  are  you  not 

preparing  to  follow  your  personal  choice  ? 

1 5.  What  service  to  the  community  are  you  planning  to  render  through  your 

vocation  ? 

EXTRA 

A.  For  College- Preparatory  pupils 

1 .  For  what  college  are  you  preparing  ? 

2.  Why  have  you  chosen  this  college  ? 

3.  What  are  its  requirements? 

B.  For  Scientific,  Normal  School,  Normal  Art  School,  etc.,  Preparatory  pupils 

1 .  For  what  school  are  you  preparing  ? 

2.  Why  have  you  chosen  this  school? 

3.  What  are  its  requirements? 

NOTE.  Please  answer  questions  in  full  where  space  is  given ;  otherwise,  as 
briefly  as  possible.  The  purpose  of  this  inquiry  is  to  help  in  the  conduct  of  the 
school  rather  than  to  be  inquisitive  concerning  the  personal  affairs  of  the  pupils. 
Please  answer  frankly.  Replies  will  be  considered  confidential. 


A  printed  copy  of  this  questionnaire  was,  without  warning,  given 
each  pupil  of  the  upper  three  classes  one  morning  last  February. 
One  period,  about  forty-five  minutes,  was  allowed  for  the  answer- 
ing of  the  questions.  No  attempt  was  made  to  have  absent  pupils 
answer  them  later.  The  same  plan  was  followed  a  week  or  so  later 
in  an  afternoon  session  with  first-year  pupils. 

The  present  report  is  based  on  only  1226  of  these  papers.  It 
has  been  impossible  to  complete  it;  some  528  yet  remain.  These 
1226  include,  however,  every  year  and  every  course  and  are,  there- 
fore, enough  from  which  to  draw  conclusions.  No  attempt  has 
been  made  to  reduce  all  the  answers  to  tables  and  schedules.  The 
writer  prefers  to  give  summaries  or  actual  quotations  which  give 
real  insight  into  the  pupil's  mind  and  heart. 


192 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


For  the  first  two  questions,  however,  a  table  seems  most  illu- 
minating : 

QUESTION  NO.  1 


Years 

Number  of  pupils 

Average  age 

Yes 

No 

j> 

ion  . 

1  88 

18.27 

184 

O 

2 

1QI4.    . 

240 

I7.2Q 

2T? 

I 

C 

1915  A~B            

•3Q4 

i6.« 

-?6i 

16 

c 

1916  A-B   

2T.O 

i  c.i6 

187 

"12 

7 

1917  A    

174 

14.72 

137 

29 

6 

1226 

IIO2 

78 

25 

QUESTION  NO.  2 


Years 

-l 

lyr. 

1-2 

2 

2-3 

3 

4 

j 

IQI7     . 

2 

•3 

IDll      . 

2 

c 

I 

1915  A—  B  

I 

I 

II 

•3 

I 

I 

1916  A-B  

2 

-i 

27 

•3 

I 

IQI7  A    . 

i 

•3 

•3 

2O 

I 

i 

6 

7 

54 

6 

6 

6 

9 

It  is  evident  that  there  is  less  certainty  in  the  minds  of  first-  and 
second-year  pupils  regarding  the  length  of  stay  in  the  school.  The 
large  number  of  two-year  statements  is  doubtless  due  to  the  fact 
that  most  of  these  pupils  belong  to  the  two-year  Commercial  class. 
The  reasons  given  for  less  than  four  years'  stay  fall  under  the 
respective  headings  as  follows : 


a 

b 

c 

d 

OTHER  REASONS 

1913 

1914 

I 

I 

2 

2 

4  —  to  prepare  at  Exeter  Academy 

1915  A-B 

I 

2 

4 

I 

4  —  three  to  other  schools  ;  one  moved  away 

1916  A-B 

9 

3 

8 

I 

6  —  five  to  other  schools  or  business 

1917  A 

10 

0 

9 

2 

5  —  four  to  other  schools  ;  one,  "  account  of 

21 

6 

23 

6 

19         knowledge" 

Financial  conditions  and  desire  to  go  to  work  are  evidently  the 
chief  reasons. 


VOCATIONAL  AIMS  OF  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS     193 

Of  the  1226  pupils  154  are  in  the  General  Course  ;  489  in  the 
College  Preparatory,  which  includes  Normal  and  Scientific  pupils 
also ;  29  in  the  Manual  Arts  Course,  which  is  new  and  not  well 
understood ;  480  in  the  Commercial  Course ;  56  in  the  two-year 
Commercial,  and  I  special  student.  In  the  senior  and  the  junior 
classes  more  are  in  the  College  divisions ;  in  the  sophomore  and 
the  freshman  classes  the  Commercial  Course  predominates. 

It  is  in  the  reasons  for  choice  of  these  courses  that  special  in- 
terest lies  ;  and  in  the  changes  of  course.  Of  the  latter,  1 1  were 
mentioned.  Several  of  these  are  worth  mentioning : 

1.  Started   in  (b).    Changed  to  (a)  —  due  to  poor  marks    and    death    of 
father. 

2.  Changed  to  (a)  because  he  had  not  definite  plan  at  first. 

3.  Changed  from  (a)  to  (b)  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  year,  etc.     That 
they  and  others  needed  guidance  is  shown  by  such  reasons  for  choice  as  these : 

1.  "  Chosen  at  random." 

2.  (d)  "  Mostly  because  there  was  nothing  I  really  wanted,  and  I  had  to  take 
something." 

3.  (a)  "  Did  not  intend  to  go  to  college  or  take  business  course." 

4.  (d)  "  Did  n't  know  what  else  to  take." 

In  view  of  these  answers,  one  is  not  surprised  to  find  that  of 
1157  answers  to  question  6,  only  426  indicate  knowledge  of  the 
work  of  the  four  years ;  145  of  three  years  ;  272  of  two  years ; 
and  275  of  the  first  year.  The  first-  and  the  second-year  pupils 
know  little  about  the  years  ahead ;  no  wonder  they  make  serious 
errors  in  choice. 

Their  ideas  of  their  qualifications  for  the  course  taken  range  from 
"  None  "  or  "  I  'm  sure  I  don't  know  "  to  statements  of  personal 
factors,  special  abilities  or  interests,  etc.  Among  the  most  inter- 
esting are  these : 

"  Ability  to  do  mathematics  better  than  many  girls." 

"  A  brain  and  ability  to  study  until  I  get  what  I  want." 

"  Willingness  to  work  hard." 

"Ambition,  honesty,  common  sense,  good  health,  etc." 

The  occupations  to  be  followed  later  cover  much  ground.  I  have 
divided  them  into  four  groups  for  comparison  : 

i .  Commercial,  including  bookkeeping,  stenography,  etc. 


194  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

2.  Future  study,  including  college,  normal  school,  etc. ;  profes- 
sional and  semiprofessional  work,  including  medicine,  law,  music, 
art,  etc.,  and  trades.  Of  the  1226  only  n  indicated  desire  to 
engage  in  the  work  of  trades.  Many  already  know  what  profession 
they  purpose  to  engage  in,  and  many  plan  to  go  into  commercial 
life — 172  as  stenographers,  36  as  bookkeepers,  and  56  in  office 
work. 

Knowledge  of  the  requirements  of  these  occupations  is  limited. 
Personal  factors  are  named  in  much  the  same  way  as  in  answer 
to  question  7.  Business  factors  —  ability  to  work;  appreciate  the 
value  of  time ;  willingness  to  do  what  is  required  and  more  if 
necessary  —  are  mentioned.  Special  demands  are  spoken  of  in 
very  few  instances  ;  viz.  apprenticeship  or  special  training.  Is  it  any 
wonder  that  lacking  information  concerning  employments,  one 
says  later,  "  There  is  nothing  to  take  to  be  a  nurse  "  ;  and  another, 
that  he  made  a  mistake  in  taking  the  wrong  course  and  cannot, 
therefore,  prepare  for  the  vocation  he  desires  ? 

Information  has  been  gained  from  many  sources :  people, 
reading,  inquiry,  experience,  observation,  and  thought.  One 
suggested  examining  and  checking  off  subjects  already  taken. 
And  one,  bewildered,  asked  for  advice.  His  case  was  followed 
up  with  care. 

In  the  majority  of  cases  pupils  are  doing  the  work  they  really 
wish  to  do.  Answers  to  question  14  show  that  financial  conditions 
and  family  objections  are  the  chief  obstacles.  But  I  also  find  as 
reasons : 

"  I  made  a  mistake  in  taking  the  wrong  course." 

"  I  couldn't  change  my  course." 

"  I  do  not  want  to  carry  out  the  course." 

"  No  personal  ability  for  any  line  of  work." 

These  are  the  people  likely  to  become  discouraged  and  leave 
school. 

That  parents  know  too  little  about  the  school,  and  play  too  small 
a  part  in  the  child's  choice  of  work  there,  is  indicated  by  the  next 
group  of  answers : 


VOCATIONAL  AIMS  OF  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS     195 


AGREE 

DISAGREE 

NOTHING 

OWN  CHOICE 

GENERAL  ADVICE 

1913  

IQI4 

127 
145 

10 

2C 

7 

I  T. 

16 
24 

6 
I 

1915  A-B  .  .  . 
1916  A-B  .  .  . 

IQI7  A  . 

287 

!3° 
III 

27 

18 

I  c 

8 

7 

A 

17 

5 

c 

3 

12 

800 

95 

39 

67 

22 

Unfortunately  too  many  of  the  first  group  may  be  like  the  case 
of  one  pupil,  who  said  parental  advice  was,  "  Think  and  decide ; 
then  let  me  know  to  approve  or  disapprove."  One  has  reason  to 
believe  that  such  is  often  the  case,  because  so  many  say  that  they 
made  their  own  choice.  As  one  puts  it,  "  They  have  given  a  good 
deal  of  advice,  but  let  me  be  guided  by  my  own  wishes."  Another 
says  :  "  Nothing.  I  chose  this  work  of  my  own  accord.  I  am  putting 
myself  through  school."  Still  another  says,  "  No  advice  to  give." 
And  a  boy  whose  longing  for  ornithology  has  not  yet  been  met  by 
information  or  help,  wrote  concerning  parents'  advice,  "  Nothing. 
Absolutely  nothing."  His  mother  died  only  a  few  years  ago. 

Financial  benefits  have  much  to  do  with  choices.  Two  hundred 
eighty  three  say  frankly  that  it  did.  One  says  that  he  has  a  brother 
going  to  college.  Another,  "  Must  support  parents."  "  Family 
need  support ;  father  is  not  living."  "  College  graduates  obtain 
better  paying  positions."  "  Want  to  earn  money  for  a  musical 
career."  "  Most  money  in  it  for  me."  "  I  shall  have  to  work  my 
way  if  I  go  to  college."  "  If  I  really  knew  what  I  should  like  to 
become,  I  should  go  to  college  ;  but  I  think  that  it  would  be  a 
waste  of  time  to  do  something  that  I  do  not  know  anything  about." 
Can  anyone  with  sympathetic  spirit  and  understanding  heart  fail 
to  respond  to  the  appeal  in  this  statement  ?  The  opening  is  there  ; 
one  needs  only  to  follow  up  the  boy,  and  he  is  appreciative  and 
grateful. 

Service  to  the  community  was  to  many  a  new  idea.  Twenty 
admitted  that  they  had  no  thought  about  it,  and  fifty-eight  did  not 
know  what  they  could  do.  Some  cared  little  for  others.  One  said, 
"  None.  I  am  going  to  look  after  myself  first."  "  None.  I  expect 
to  be  a  peaceful  citizen,"  answered  another. 


196  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Many,  however,  showed  much  thought  and  understanding  of 
what  service  might  mean.  I  grouped  the  answers  under  the  head- 
ings :  through  work,  social  help,  as  a  citizen,  through  character, 
all  possible.  Some  were,  like  the  last,  mentioned  vaguely.  Others 
were  very  specific.  Here  are  several  typical  replies  : 

"  Hope  to  be  instrumental  in  alleviating  suffering  caused  by 
cancer." 

"Aid  city  government." 

"  Be  a  credit  to  S ."    (Somerville.) 

"The  better  I  am  educated,  the  more  I  can  do  for  the  com- 
munity." 

"  To  better  conditions  where  I  live." 

"  To  lay  out  better  cities." 

"  Design  public  buildings  so  that  they  will  last." 

"  Defend  innocent  men  and  women  who  are  accused  of  crime." 

"  Help  unfortunate  people." 

And  with  unintentional  humor,  and  perhaps  sad  comment  on 
what  he  has  heard  and  read,  "Justify  wrong."  To  awaken  the 
minds  of  all  pupils  to  the  idea  of  "  noblesse  oblige  "  is  surely  the 
duty  of  any  school. 

Of  these  pupils  many  are  going  to  colleges  and  other  higher 
institutions.  Harvard,  Tufts,  and  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology attract  the  larger  number  of  boys ;  Radcliffe,  Wellesley, 
Simmons,  Salem  Normal  School,  and  Boston  Normal  Art  School, 
of  the  girls. 

Answers  with  regard  to  choosing  college,  etc.,  and  requirements, 
were  fewer  in  number.  Only  357  answered  the  former  and  282 
the  latter.  Location,  standard  of  scholarship  and  instruction  courses 
offered,  time  required,  reputation,  experience  and  recommendations 
of  others,  type  of  graduates,  cost  of  tuition,  etc.,  all  are  mentioned 
in  some  way  or  other.  It  is,  however,  plain  that  information  is 
general  and  limited.  Knowledge  of  requirements  seems  to  be  still 
less.  Perhaps  many,  like  one,  "  leave  it  to  the  principal  "  or  keep 
"a  book  of  requirements  at  home,"  etc.  Apparently  they  little 
realize  that  requirements  differ  as  do  colleges. 

It  is  rather  encouraging  to  find  some  opposition  on  the  part  of 
the  parents,  which  must  arouse  the  pupil.  Some  parents  urge  the 


VOCATIONAL  AIMS  OF  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS     197 

choice  of  definite  instead  of  indefinite  or  drifting  attitude ;  some 
have  such  radically  different  choices  as  music,  not  stenography, 
or  private  school  instead  of  office  work.  Even  parents  disagree, 
and  we  find  father  wanting  his  boy  to  be  a  surveyor,  and  mother 
choosing  for  him  a  business  course. 

Not,  however,  until  grammar-school  masters  and  teachers  work 
more  closely  with  high-school  masters  and  teachers,  and  both  groups 
work  with  pupils  and  parents,  can  the  needs  indicated  in  these 
papers  be  met.  Every  master  of  a  grammar  school  should  visit  the 
high  schools  of  his  city,  study  their  work,  and  be  ready  with  coop- 
eration of  the  high-school  teachers  to  give  such  information  as  will 
help  pupils  to  choose  carefully  courses  which  will  look  far  ahead. 
Then  in  the  high  school  there  should  be  flexibility  enough  to  per- 
mit of  readjustments.  There  is  no  reason  why  those  in  the  wrong 
course  by  mistake  must  stay  there.  Finally,  the  high  school  must 
give  to  the  pupils,  whether  they  ask  it  or  not,  definite,  clear,  simple 
information  regarding  the  work  they  may  do  in  the  world.  Not 
until  all  this  is  adequately  done  will  the  gap  between  high  school 
and  grammar  school,  on  the  one  hand,  and  high  school  and  after 
life,  on  the  other,  be  bridged. 

RECOMMENDATIONS 


I.  That  in  the  high  school  one  or  two  teachers  be  officially 
designated  Vocational  Counselors,  with  time  allowed  for  vocational 
guidance  among  the  pupils.    If  possible,  one  of  these  counselors 
should  be  a  man. 

II.  That  a  committee  of  five  or  more  teachers  be  appointed  to 
work  with  these  counselors  in  such  ways  as  the  latter  may  find 
necessary  and  advisable. 

III.  That  a  group  of  citizens,  men  and  women  of  recognized 
character,  experience,  and  standing  in  profession,  business,  and 
trade,  be  invited  to  cooperate  with  counselors  and  committee  by 
allowing  themselves  to  be  interviewed  by  such  boys  and  girls  as 
the  aforesaid  counselors  may  deem  it  necessary  to  send  to  them 
for  information  or  advice. 


198  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

IV.  That  by  means  of  talks,  books  read,  compositions,  etc.,  all 
pupils  be  given  at  least  a  general  idea  of  occupations  and  their 
requirements. 

V.  That  the  questionnaire  papers  of  last  year  be  at  once  used 
in  "  follow  up  "  work  among  the  pupils.    Special  attention  should 
be  given  papers  marked  or  starred. 

VI.  That  advisers  endeavor  at  once  to  make  sure  that  pupils  have 
read  the  entire  course  of  study,  understand  what  is  offered  through- 
out the  four  years,  and  have  reasonable  basis  for  choice  of  course. 

VII.  That  effort  be  made  to  have  pupils  going  to  higher  insti- 
tutions obtain  and  read  carefully  the  catalogue,  etc.,  of  the  school 
or  the  college  which  they  plan  to  enter,  find  out  as  much  as  pos- 
sible about  the  requirements  and  the  life  of  that  and  other  schools 
and  colleges,  and  choose  with  some  thought  and  reason. 

VIII.  That,  if  possible,  information  be  obtained  and  given  pupils, 
especially  those  of  third  or  fourth  year,  concerning  scholarships, 
loans,  etc.,  offered  by  state,  clubs,  societies,  colleges,  etc.  to  first- 
year  students  in  colleges  and  kindred  institutions. 

IX.  That  pupils  obviously  unfitted  for  the  work  of  any  course 
be  transferred  as  soon  as  possible  to  the  course  to  which  they  may 
be  found  by  teachers  and  counselors  to  be  adapted. 

X.  That  through  meetings  or  personal  conferences  (possibly 
through  the  formation  of  a  Parents'  Association)  greater  coopera- 
tion be  brought  about  between  high-school  teachers  and  parents, 
and  high-school  teachers  and  grammar-school  masters  and  teachers. 

XI.  That  in  ethics,  in  conferences  with  advisers,  in  class  work, 
or  through  some  other  means,  greater  emphasis  be  placed  on  per- 
sonal service  as  the  ultimate  goal  to  be  sought,  whatever  the  life 
work  chosen  and  the  return  due  for  the  education  received. 

B 

I.  That  the  Superintendent  make  a  request,  equivalent  to  de- 
mand, that  every  grammar-school  master  visit,  while  it  is  in  ses- 
sion, the  high  school  and  acquaint  himself  or  herself  with  the 
course  of  study  and  the  requirements  of  the  school. 

II.  That  the  grammar-school  masters  and  assistants  be  required 
early  in  the  year  to  study  their  pupils,  find  out  what  they  plan  to 


VOCATIONAL  AIMS  OF  HIGH-SCHOOL  PUPILS     199 

do  at  the  end  of  their  grammar-school  course,  and  seek  to  help 
them  choose  carefully  and  wisely  school  and  course  of  study  or 
occupation,  using  all  possible  effort  to  prevent  their  choice  of  work 
for  which  they  are  plainly  not  fitted. 

III.  That,  as  the  Superintendent  suggested  last  year,  meetings 
of  parents  and  graduating  classes  of  grammar  schools  be  held  at 
intervals  during  the  year  in  the  respective  schools,  such  meetings 
to  be  addressed  by  heads  of  departments  or  those  in  charge  of  the 
various  courses  in  high  school  and  vocational  schools. 


I.  That  in  all  schools  effort  be  made  to  find  out  when  and  why 
pupils  leave  school,  and  to  keep  in  touch  with  them  after  they 
have  left. 

II.  That  pupils  be  required  if  possible,  as  in  Boston,  to  give 
teacher  or  Vocational  Counselor  one  week's  notice  of  intention 
to  leave. 

III.  That  through  conference  between  parent  and  teacher,  and 
pupil  and  teacher,  effort  be  made  to  keep  the  pupil  in  school  if 
possible. 

IV.  That  pupils  be  sent  for  employment  certificates  only  after 
careful  investigation  of  the  merits  and  the  needs  of  their  respective 
cases. 


SHALL  ELECTIVE  COURSES  BE  ESTABLISHED  IN 

THE    SEVENTH    AND    EIGHTH    GRADES    OF    THE 

ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL? 

BY  DISTRICT  SUPERINTENDENT  I.  E.  GOLDWASSER,  MANHATTAN, 

NEW  YORK 

(From  The  Psychological  Clinic,  January  15,  1914) 

Table  XLI  of  the  Fourteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  City  Super- 
intendent of  Schools  to  the  Board  of  Education  of  the  City  of 
New  York  presents  the  following  figures  : 

REGISTER  BEFORE  PROMOTION,  JUNE  30,  1912 

i  A 40,489 

lB 49.740 

2A 40,327 

2B 45,986 

3A 40,336 

3B 43-I3I 

4A 39,568 

48 41,224 

5A 37,329 

SB 36,783 

6A 33,237 

6B 32,245 

7A 28,875 

7B 25,718 

8A 22,250 

8B 21,169 

Total  IA-8B 578,407 

In  computing  registers  for  the  spring  terms  of  the  year,  it  has 
been  found  that  the  totals  for  B  classes  in  the  various  grades 
are  larger  than  those  for  the  A  classes.  This  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  admission  into  the  lA  classes  in  September  of  each  year 
is  greater  than  that  in  February.  The  weather  conditions  are 


ELECTIVE  COURSES  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL     201 

somewhat  responsible  for  this  situation,  parents  being  reluctant  to 
have  their  children  begin  their  attendance  at  school  in  the  midst 
of  winter.  Furthermore,  the  old  tradition  that  the  year  begins  in 
September  is  also  a  factor  tending  to  make  the  I A  registers  larger 
in  the  September  term  than  in  the  February  term.  Thus  the 
register  in  lA  before  promotion,  January  31,  1912,  was  60,962, 
while  that  on  June  30,  1912,  as  already  noted,  was  40,489.  As 
a  result  of  this,  A  registers  are  larger  in  the  fall  term  and  smaller 
in  the  spring  term  in  all  the  grades. 

Despite  this  fact,  the  56  register  is  less  than  the  5  A  register 
for  the  spring  term  of  1912  ;  and  similar  conditions  obtain  in  the 
case  of  the  5th,  7th,  and  8th  years.  In  addition,  it  should  be  noted 
that  the  6A  register  is  7252  less  than  the  lA  register,  while  that 
of  8B  is  12,068  less.  It  is  fair  to  assume  that  of  a  given  register 
in  6A  classes  at  any  specified  time  about  one  third  will  leave 
school  without  graduation. 

There  is  nothing  novel  about  this  inference  from  the  data.  It 
cannot,  however,  too  frequently  be  brought  before  the  notice  of 
those  interested  in  the  schools,  that  under  the  present  forms  of 
organization  and  administration  we  are  not  able  to  hold  children 
in  the  schools  even  to  the  end  of  the  elementary  course. 

Economic  stress  cannot  be  cited  as  the  cause  of  this  great  re- 
duction. No  one  who  has  interviewed  the  boys  and  girls  applying 
for  an  employment  certificate  can  fail  to  have  become  convinced 
that  most  of  these  children  leave  not  because  there  is  a  real  need 
for  their  going  to  work,  but  because  the  remaining  years  of  the 
course  do  not  offer  features  which  bind  them  closely  to  school.  It 
is  not  that  work  is  necessary  but  rather  that  school  is  not  attractive. 

In  order  to  determine  why  the  course  of  study  seems  not  to 
hold  within  itself  the  features  that  make  the  school  a  vital  thing 
to  the  pupils,  it  is  not  necessary  to  take  the  subjects  individually 
and  show  wherein  they  have  become  narrowed  by  reason  of  tradi- 
tional influences  still  operative  in  our  school  system.  It  might,  of 
course,  be  shown  that  the  course  in  English  history  in  the  seventh 
year,  by  reason  of  the  lack  of  preparedness  of  the  teacher,  the 
vast  scope  of  the  subject  matter,  and  the  immaturity  of  the  pupils, 
can  never  be  made  to  enter  into  the  real  thinking  experience  of 


202  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

the  children.  We  might  refer  to  the  7  A  review  of  the  United 
States  and  the  8B  general  review  in  geography  and  point  out  that 
this  constant  re-presentation  of  old  material  is  uninteresting.  Or 
the  8A  course  in  geography  might  be  cited  as  a  curious  relic  of 
the  old  interest  in  science  as  an  academic  subject. 

In  a  similar  way,  the  course  in  grammar  could  be  analyzed 
so  as  to  show  wherein  it  demands  a  power  of  discrimination 
and  logical  thinking  beyond  the  average  child  of  the  elementary 
school  in  so  cosmopolitan  a  city  as  ours.  Again,  the  selection 
of  masterpieces  for  literary  study  might  be  criticized  on  the 
ground  that  it  does  not  properly  provide  for  a  vital  point  of  con- 
tact between  the  emotional  life  of  the  pupils  and  the  spirit  of 
the  selection. 

All  these  criticisms  have  been  made,  and  with  authority.  In 
fact  earnest  efforts  are  now  being  made  to  revise  the  various 
courses  of  study  so  as  to  rid  them  of  the  burdens  of  the  centuries 
and  make  them  adequately  representative  of  the  demands  of  our 
times.  Our  board  of  education  and  our  superintendents  have  been 
at  work  at  this  problem  for  several  years,  and  notable  reforms  have 
already  been  accomplished.  Others  are  promised  for  the  imme- 
diate future. 

But  even  if  an  ideal  situation  is  created  in  each  of  the  subjects, 
the  fact  will  still  remain  that  the  course  of  study  will  be  essentially 
academic.  Book  knowledge  will  still  be  emphasized.  General 
culture,  of  the  sort  that  one  attributes  to  the  well-read  or  well- 
informed  man,  will  still  be  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the  pupil 
who  has  mastered  such  courses.  And  the  unfortunate  fact  will 
still  confront  us,  so  serious  in  its  implications  that  its  import  is 
truly  tragic,  that  the  general  fitness  which  we  attempt  to  secure 
really  means  specific  unfitness. 

Take  if  you  will  the  ordinary  graduate  of  an  elementary  school. 
What  is  he  fit  for  ?  Has  he  an  equipment  that  will  make  him 
ready  to  take  up  with  even  a  reasonable  degree  of  efficiency  any 
occupation  other  than  that  of  a  clerk  or  an  office  assistant  whose 
work  is  unskilled  ?  His  manual  training  has  been  with  wood  as 
the  only  material  and  with  no  machines.  Her  sewing  has  been  by 


ELECTIVE  COURSES  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL     203 

hand  or  on  a  foot-driven  sewing-machine.  Entering  any  shop  or 
factory,  such  a  graduate  is  no  better,  save  in  general  intelligence, 
than  an  absolutely  untrained  beginner.  The  seventh  and  eighth 
years  of  the  course  have  given  no  preparation  that  would  serve  as 
a  recompense  for  the  extra  time  spent  in  the  school.  Why,  then, 
should  a  pupil  stay  ?  The  lure  of  the  diploma,  as  a  cachet  of 
culture,  is  not  strong  enough  to  hold  one  third  of  the  pupils. 
That  fact  is  attested  by  the  figures  in  our  possession.  And  as 
an  offset  to  the  diploma,  there  is  the  larger  pay  envelope  of 
the  pupil  who  left  in  the  seventh  year  and  in  a  year  or  so  has 
become  economically  more  valuable  to  his  employer  than  is  the 
inexperienced  graduate. 

Even  this,  however,  serious  as  it  is,  does  not  give  us  a  true 
picture  of  the  gravity  of  the  situation.  The  inflexibility  of  the 
course,  essentially  academic  —  a  book  course  —  would  seem  to 
imply  a  homogeneity  of  interests  in  the  pupils.  There  is  no  ma- 
terial offered  on  which  a  variety  of  tastes  can  be  tested.  We  have 
no  way  of  discovering  aptitudes  of  pupils.  Excellence  in  history 
and  geography  may  be  discovered.  But  what  assurance  have  we 
that  we  are  not  neglecting  some  extraordinary  power  in  another 
direction  ?  Eventually,  such  power  must  find  expression.  But  the 
waste  of  tentative  effort  before  a  final  form  for  activity  is  discovered 
is  bound  to  be  tremendous.  Nor  is  it  with  extraordinary  ability 
alone  that  we  are  concerned.  How  about  the  pupil  who  may  be 
just  a  little  above  the  average  in  some  trade,  who  would  find 
happiness  in  self-expression,  but  who  is  doomed  to  discontent 
because  he  was  never  given  a  chance  to  discover  himself  until 
it  was  too  late  ? 

Opinions  may  differ  as  to  whether  we  can  develop  efficiency  in 
any  trade  by  training  pupils  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  years  of  the 
course.  There  may  be  debate  as  to  whether  children  of  thirteen 
are  old  enough  or  mature  enough  to  select  their  life  occupation. 
But  what  argument  can  be  advanced  against  giving  them  an  ac- 
quaintance with  many  different  kinds  of  activity  —  commercial, 
industrial,  and  the  like  —  so  that  their  choice  of  a  vocation  shall 
be  made  not  in  spite  of  their  ignorance  of  all,  but  because  of  an 


204  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

actual,  if  limited,  experience  of  work  in  each  of  the  vocations  ? 
Let  them  learn  and  know  the  different  trades,  so  that,  know- 
ing, they  shall  be  able  later  to  exercise  a  free  choice.  Let  us 
eliminate,  as  far  as  we  can,  the  accidental  determination  of  a 
life  pursuit. 

If  our  seventh  and  eighth  years  were  converted  into  an  experi- 
mental period,  pupils  would  soon  come  to  find  value  in  these  final 
years  of  the  course.  And  if,  when  the  choice  had  been  carefully 
made,  an  added  year  were  given  to  the  elementary  schools,  so  that 
a  pupil  might  receive  simple  training  in  his  work,  we  should  be 
producing  efficient  graduates,  with  choices  rationally  made  and 
with  an  equipment  that  would  increase  their  wage-earning  power. 
In  short,  we  should  be  laying  the  foundations  for  happiness  and 
competency.  Incidentally,  we  should  be  holding  a  greater  number 
of  pupils  for  a  longer  period  in  our  schools. 

Is  there  the  variety  of  demand  that  is  presupposed  by  our  state- 
ment of  the  needs  of  the  situation  ?  Is  it  true  that  pupils  in  our 
seventh  and  eighth  years  have  decided  preferences  for  pursuits, 
for  which  no  training  whatever  is  given  in  our  elementary  schools  ? 
In  order  to  determine  this  a  study  was  made  of  2552  boys  and 
girls  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  years  of  Public  School  62,  Inter- 
mediate. This  school  receives  pupils  from  the  6B  classes  of  seven 
neighboring  schools.  Almost  all  the  children  are  Jewish.  Each 
child  was  told  to  write  a  letter  to  the  principal  of  the  school, 
covering  these  points  : 

1 .  What  do  you  intend  to  do  when  you  go  out  into  life  ? 

2.  Why  do  you  make  this  selection  ? 

3.  If  you  could  begin  at  once  to  prepare  for  this  pursuit  what 
would  you  like  to  take  up  ? 

The  idea  was  to  secure  a  statement  of 

1.  Choice. 

2.  Reasons. 

3.  Pupils'  ideas  of  content  of  courses. 

Before  any  attempt  is  made  to  present  the  results  of  this  study, 
one  fact  must  be  made  clear.  The  mere  choice  of  a  certain  voca- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  pupil  should  not  mean  that  such  vocation 


ELECTIVE  COURSES  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL     205 

is  necessarily  to  be  followed  by  him.  Guidance  is  more  important 
than  choice.  The  selections  here  indicated  were  made  under  con- 
ditions which  made  it  impossible  for  children  to  have  discovered 
themselves.  They  were  judging  relative  values,  as  will  be  seen, 
not  in  terms  of  their  own  powers  but  largely  in  terms  of  the  de- 
grees of  desirability  of  the  work  they  intended  to  engage  in.  The 
point  to  bear  in  mind,  however,  is  that  with  a  thoroughgoing 
academic  course  wishes,  at  all  events,  have  already  been  registered 
in  their  minds. 

In  order  to  make  the  choice  more  intelligent  the  words  "  aca- 
demic," "industrial,"  and  "commercial"  were  used  and  carefully 
explained  to  all  the  pupils. 

TABLE  1.  CHOICE  OF  VOCATIONS 

ACADEMIC  INDUSTRIAL  COMMERCIAL  TOTALS 

Boys 396                  273                     440  1109 

Girls 376                 326                    741  1443 

772                  599                  1181  2552 

Assuming  that  we  had  a  perfect  academic  course,  we  should 
then  be  supplying  the  needs  of  772  out  of  2552  pupils,  30  per 
cent.  In  this  particular  section  of  the  city  there  are  many  "  busi- 
ness schools  "  which  turn  out,  as  from  a  hopper,  stenographers 
and  bookkeepers,  often  with  one  year's  training  or  less.  Such 
schools  meet  the  needs  of  46  per  cent  of  the  pupils.  The  remain- 
ing 24  per  cent  of  the  pupils  wish  industrial  work,  and  the  only 
agency  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  years,  outside  of  the  Vocational 
Schools  for  Boys  and  for  Girls  (where  carfare  is  a  deterrent 
factor),  is  the  course  in  woodwork  and  hand  sewing,  with  a  little 
training  in  sewing  on  a  foot-driven  machine. 

What  are  the  considerations  that  influence  pupils  in  their  choice 
of  a  vocation  ?  What  is  the  occupation  they  wish  to  follow,  prepara- 
tion for  which  involves  study  in  the  courses  indicated  ? 

The  second  of  these  investigations  is  extremely  interesting  as 
affording  an  insight  into  the  definiteness  of  the  selection  made 
by  pupils. 


206  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

TABLE  2 

Among  the  396  boys  selecting  an  academic  course  these  ambitions  are  to 
be  noted : 

Architect 4 

Astronomer 2 

Artist 2 

Chemist 3 

Civil  engineer 19 

Civil  service 16 

Doctor 65 

Electrical  engineer 2 

Forester i 

Lawyer 76 

Literary  man 4 

Musician 4 

Optometrist i 

Orator i 

Pharmacist 19 

Philosopher i 

Rabbi i 

Surgeon 2 

Teacher 45 

Veterinary  Surgeon i 

Total 269 

The  remaining  127  will  be  accounted  for  in  another  way. 

TABLE  3 

Among  the  376  girls  selecting  an  academic  course  these  ambitions  are  to 
be  noted : 

Teacher 220 

Physician 12 

Nurse 10 

Dentist 2 

Music  teacher 6 

Librarian 17 

Teacher  of  athletics 2 

Lawyer 16 

Author 5 

Artist 3 

Teacher  of  drawing 2 

Pharmacist 2 

Musician 2 

Total 299 

The  remaining  77  will  be  accounted  for  in  another  way. 


ELECTIVE  COURSES  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL     207 

TABLE  4 

Among  the  273  boys  selecting  an  industrial  course  these  ambitions  are  to 
be  noted : 

Carpenter 23 

Electrician 20 

Civil  engineer 64 

Machinist 10 

Plumber 8 

Printer 12 

Telegrapher 5 

Designer 6 

Surveyor       4 

Diamond  setter I 

Farmer 4 

Mechanician 4 

Letter  carrier i 

Post-office  clerk i 

Artist ii 

Builder 4 

Machine  designer 

Factory  owner 

Furniture  maker 

Inventor  

Tailor 

Teacher  of  manual  training 2 

Wool  manufacturer i 

Engineer 6 

Automobile  industry I 

Pattern  making .  2 

Cloak  and  suit  cutter 2 

Mechanical  engineer i 

Electrical  engineer 5 

Jeweler i 

Chauffeur 2 

Forester 2 

Bookbinder 3 

Cabinetmaker 10 

Motion-picture  operator i 

Mining  engineer i 

Ironworker i 

Total 224 

The  remaining  49  will  be  accounted  for  in  another  way. 


208  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

TABLE  5 

Among  the  326  girls  selecting  an  industrial  course  the  following  ambitions 
are  to  be  noted : 

Dressmaker 143 

Milliner 75 

Milliner  and  dressmaker 22 

Designer 34 

Teacher  of  cooking 2 

Photographer i 

Nurse 3 

Artist 4 

Embroiderer 9 

Embroidery  designer i 

Librarian 6 

Total 300 

The  remaining  26  will  be  accounted  for  in  another  way. 

TABLE  6 

Among  the  460  boys  selecting  a  commercial  course  the  following  ambitions 
are  to  be  noted  : 

Grocer I 

Florist i 

Jeweler i 

Salesman 81 

Traveling  salesman 82 

Bookkeeper 186 

Stenographer 69 

Office  clerk 6 

Bartender i 

Reporter i 

Public  accountant 2 

Banker     3 

Typewriter 4 

Letter  carrier 2 

Post-office  clerk 2 

Bank  clerk 7 

Shipping  clerk 3 

Foreman i 

Wholesale  dry  goods i 

Jewelry  business i 

Commissioner  of  deeds .  i 

Telegrapher i 

Stenographer,  typewriter,  and  bookkeeper i 

Broker     i 

To  know  how  to  pay  workmen i 

Total "4^0 


ELECTIVE  COURSES  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL     209 

TABLE  7 

Among  the  741  girls  selecting  a  commercial  course  the  following  ambitions 
are  to  be  noted : 

Bookkeeper 262 

Saleswoman 25 

Typewriter 30 

Stenographer 39 

Bookkeeper,  typewriter,  and  stenographer 51 

Cashier 2 

Office  assistant 6 

Bank  clerk i 

Bookkeeper  and  typewriter 22 

Bookkeeper  and  stenographer 4 

Stenographer  and  typewriter 97 

Buyer 7 

Clerk i 

Composer i 

Traveling  saleswoman i 

Total 559 

The  remaining  182  will  be  accounted  for  in  another  way. 

Were  the  courses  of  various  kinds  given  to  the  children  of  the 
seventh  and  eighth  years,  it  is  probable  that  choices  would  be 
entirely  different.  Moreover,  were  the  teachers  afforded  an  oppor- 
tunity to  observe  children  at  work  in  the  various  courses,  they 
would  be  able  to  add  to  their  original  judgment  of  aptitude  the 
results  of  their  observation  and  so  might  make  intelligent  sugges- 
tions to  influence  choice.  For  it  is  to  be  noted  that  with  a  definite 
aim  in  view,  children  have  selected  the  wrong  course. 

In  some  instances  the  choice  indicated  clearly  that  the  child 
had  made  a  selection  and  still  was  entirely  wrong  in  conception 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  course. 

This  was  true  in  the  following  cases  : 

ACADEMIC     INDUSTRIAL    COMMERCIAL 

Boys 4  3  6 

Girls o  o  o 

In  some  cases  the  choice  was  made  and  no  aim  at  all  was  stated : 

ACADEMIC     INDUSTRIAL    COMMERCIAL 

Boys o  o  o 

Girls 4  o  14 


2IO 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


The  mere  fact  of  personal  preference  sufficed  as  a  reason  in 
many  cases : 

ACADEMIC     INDUSTRIAL    COMMERCIAL 

Boys I  I  o 

Girls :     .     46  20  128 

The  wish  of  parents  was  frequently,  cited  as  the  only  reason  for 
the  choice.  The  numbers  are  : 

ACADEMIC     INDUSTRIAL    COMMERCIAL 

Boys ii  ii  21 

Girls 9  6  22 

A  general  liking  for  the  content  of  the  course  was  occasionally 
cited  as  a  reason  : 

ACADEMIC     INDUSTRIAL    COMMERCIAL 

Boys 30  14  o 

Girls 19  7  o 

In  some  cases  the  selection  was  based  on  the  child's  aptitude 
for  such  phases  of  the  work  as  had  already  been  taken  up  in  the 
regular  course  : 

ACADEMIC     INDUSTRIAL    COMMERCIAL 

Boys    ....  o  o  2 

Girls o  6  3 

The  desire  to  help  parents  in  their  work  was  cited  as  a  reason : 

ACADEMIC     INDUSTRIAL    COMMERCIAL 

Boys o  I  I 

Girls o  o  2 

Miscellaneous  reasons  were  given  as  follows  : 

ACADEMIC  INDUSTRIAL          COMMERCIAI 

B  G  B  G  B  G 

To  lead  a  useful  life i  i                                                  i 

Course  is  short —  55 

Desire  to  be  happy —  i 

Because  of  health —  —                                                  I 

Work  is  easy —  i                       18            I 

Salary  is  good 2  9         —           i            i 

Course  is  practical —  2                        3 

Step  to  higher  work —  i            i 

Postpones  need  of  final  choice      .  i 


ELECTIVE  COURSES  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL     211 

An  interesting  study  was  made  of  what  the  pupils  should  like 
to  have  the  various  courses  include. 

ACADEMIC  COURSE 

BOYS       GIRLS 

Mathematics 102         240 

Grammar 2 

Spelling 9 

Latin 50           89 

Music 3           15 

Current  events i 

How  to  overcome  obstacles  in  life i 

How  to  use  surgical  instruments i 

Drawing 14 

French 179             i 

Chemistry 19 

German 45             i 

Modern  languages 43           63 

English 72         254 

Spanish 18 

History 32           56 

Geography 33             i 

Reading 2             i 

Medicine 25 

Biology 7 

Civics 5 

Law 31 

Hygiene 16            2 

Physiology I 

Penmanship 6 

Contracts 2 

Botany 5 

Greek 15 

Astronomy i 

Art i 

Italian 5 

Russian i 

Debating 2 

Science 2 

INDUSTRIAL  COURSE 

BOYS 

Surveying 2 

Plumbing 2 

Languages 5 

Arithmetic 113 

Grammar                , i 


212  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

INDUSTRIAL  COURSE  (CONTINUED) 

Agriculture I 

Botany 2 

Penmanship 8 

Latin 5 

German 17 

French 19 

Geography 23 

History 6 

Spanish 7 

English 56 

Salesmanship 3 

Art 2 

Electricity 13 

Carpentry n 

Machine  work 10 

Mechanical  drawing 22 

Free-hand  drawing 15 

Woodwork 24 

Science 22 

Designing 5 

Printing 3 

Astronomy i 

Architecture 2 

Bookbinding I 

Foundry  work 2 

Metal  work i 

Tailoring i 

Wood-turning 3 

Geometry 4 

Engineering 2 

Algebra    

Painting 

Greek 

Polish 

Russian 

Turkish i 

Spelling 5 

Reading i 

COMMERCIAL  COURSE 

English 137 

Mathematics 172 

Penmanship 81 

Geography 38 

Commercial  law ,          ..«••«  2 


ELECTIVE  COURSES  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL     213 

History 12 

Science 2 

Drawing 3 

German 16 

Letter  writing 10 

Geometry I 

Designing i 

French 33 

Spanish 20 

Buying 5 

Salesmanship 31 

Physics i 

Botany i 

Italian 2 

Dutch i 

Languages 12 

Bookkeeping 59 

Typewriting 35 

Stenography 65 

Algebra i 

Designing 2 

Spelling 13 

A  similar  study  of  the  content  of  commercial  and  industrial 
courses  as  judged  by  girls  has  not  been  tabulated,  owing  to  cir- 
cumstances which  lead  us  to  question  the  value  of  the  data. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  definite  is  the  demand.  There  is 
little  or  no  suggestion  of  basic  preparation,  of  a  training  larger 
than  the  need  of  the  occupation  itself.  An  ordinary  trade  school 
or  a  private  business  school  will  give  the  narrow  work  desired  by 
these  pupils.  It  requires  a  larger  view  of  social  and  economic 
needs  to  build  upon  these  desires  of  the  children  a  broad,  funda- 
mental preparedness  making  for  greater  efficiency  in  any  par- 
ticular vocation.  How  can  this  be  done  in  a  school  of  the  type  of 
Public  School  62,  Manhattan  ? 

It  may  be  well  to  make  clear  at  the  outset  that  an  intermediate 
school  offers  many  opportunities  for  organization  which  do  not 
exist  in  the  regular  grades  of  an  elementary  school.  The  number 
of  pupils  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  years  is  much  larger ;  in  this 
school  almost  3000  pupils  are  enrolled  in  the  last  two  years  of  the 
course.  There  are  three  shops,  three  kitchens,  two  sewing  rooms, 
a  typewriting  room,  two  science  rooms,  and  one  laboratory.  There 


214  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

is  space  for  the  equipment  of  special  rooms  for  the  various  in- 
dustries as  they  are  taught. 

The  following  plan  of  organization  is  suggested  : 

1.  Secure  from  the  principals  of  6B  schools  a  detailed  state- 
ment of  the  special  aptitudes  and  weaknesses  of  pupils  entering 
the  intermediate  school.    Classify  new  admissions  on  the  basis  of 
these  reports  so  as  to  secure  a  certain  degree  of  homogeneity  in 
the  composition  of  each  class. 

2.  Institute  tests  of  a  general  nature  in  the  /A  grade,  to  de- 
termine general  intelligence,   manual  skill,   power  of  judgment 
in  practical  situations,  etc.    Tabulate  all  such  findings  for  future 
reference.    Munsterberg  tests  or  others  of  a  similar  nature  may 
be  used  to  furnish  a  basis  for  teachers'  judgments. 

3.  Beginning  with  the  /A  grade  and  extending  through  the 
8  A  grade,  courses  should  be  established  in  electric  wiring,  sheet- 
metal  work,   wood-turning,   leather  work,  etc.  for  boys,   and  in 
dressmaking,    millinery,    embroidering,    machine   work,    etc.   for 
girls.    Each  course  should  extend  over  a  period  of  nine  weeks, 
thus  affording  a  series  of  six  courses.    All  pupils  should  be  re- 
quired to  take  each  course  in  turn.    Time  schedules  should  be  so 
arranged  that  at  least  eight  hours  a  week  may  be  devoted  to  the 
special  courses.    No  attempt  should  be  made  to  do  more  than 
acquaint  the  pupil  with  the  fundamental  simple  processes  under- 
lying the  various  occupations. 

4.  Every  pupil  should  be  carefully  observed  while  at  work  and 
a  detailed  record  kept  of  his  or  her  proficiency  in  the  course.  The 
work  should  be  so  planned  as  to  make  data  available  with  regard 
to  general  adaptability,  rather  than  to  give  skill  in  the  occupation 
as  such. 

5.  During  the  8 A  grades,  conferences  should  be  held  between 
parent,  pupil,  and  teacher,  the  results  of  the  tests  and  the  records 
of  the  course  should  be  carefully  examined,  and  the  pupil  should 
be  directed  into  the  course  for  which  he  appears  to  be  suited 
and  in  which  all  conditions  combine  to  make  it  probable  that  he 
will  become  efficient. 

It  is  in  the  8B  grades  that  the  special  training  should  begin. 
Small  groups  should  be  formed  for  each  course.   Intricate  processes 


ELECTIVE  COURSES  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL     215 

cannot  be  taught  nor  can  work  of  a  heavy  nature  be  under- 
taken. One  of  the  objects  sought  in  the  studies  of  the  Vocation 
Bureau  of  Boston  is  stated  thus:  "To  analyze  the  relation  of  apti- 
tudes, interests,  and  habits  to  modern  industrial  demands,  and 
thus  lay  an  adequate  foundation  for  a  system  of  training  regardful 
of  social  as  well  as  economic  needs."  Whatever  training  is  given 
should  be  along  lines  determined  by  some  such  study  as  this.  The 
courses  should  be  checked  up  constantly  by  the  results  of  occupa- 
tional investigations  and  must  be  organized  with  an  ever-present 
ideal  of  sympathetic  vocational  guidance. 

Pupils  who  wish  to  enter  a  classical  high  school  with  the  idea 
of  graduating  should  be  enrolled  at  the  beginning  of  the  8B  grade 
in  classes  organized  for  such  pupils.  Special  attention  should  be 
given  to  technical  grammar,  to  the  fundamental  principles  under- 
lying arithmetical  operations,  to  oral  English  with  particular  refer- 
ence to  the  technique  of  correct  speech,  to  penmanship,  to  the 
mechanics  of  written  language,  spelling,  punctuation,  etc.  and  to 
teaching  pupils  how  to  study. 

Pupils  who  intend  to  complete  the  full  course  in  a  commercial 
high  school  should  be  enrolled  at  the  beginning  of  the  8B  grade 
in  classes  organized  for  such  pupils.  Special  attention  should  be 
given  to  correct  oral  English,  as  regards  both  the  technique  of 
speech  and  freedom  from  foreign  idioms ;  to  letter  writing ;  to 
study  of  business  forms  ;  to  an  explanation  of  the  principles  under- 
lying the  various  kinds  of  business  to  which  arithmetic  applications 
are  made,  such  as  commission,  discount,  insurance,  etc. ;  to  com- 
mercial geography  and  to  modes  of  manufacture. 

Pupils  who  intend  to  complete  the  full  course  in  a  manual-train- 
ing trade  high  school  should  be  enrolled  at  the  beginning  of  the  8B 
grade  in  classes  organized  for  such  pupils.  Special  attention  should 
be  given  to-  correct  oral  English,  as  regards  both  the  technique  of 
speech  and  freedom  from  foreign  idioms  ;  to  mechanical  and  free- 
hand drawing ;  to  the  fundamental  arithmetical  operations ;  to  sim- 
ple constructional  geometry ;  to  elementary  algebra  ;  to  science  ; 
to  modes  of  manufacture  in  the  various  industries  ;  to  shop  work. 

Girls  who  intend  to  complete  the  full  course  in  a  technical  high 
school  should  be  enrolled  at  the  beginning  of  the  8B  grade  in 


216  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  ' 

classes  organized  for  such  pupils.  Special  attention  should  be 
given  to  sewing  (hand  and  machine),  embroidering,  with  applica- 
tions to  dressmaking  and  millinery ;  to  cooking  and  a  study  of 
food  values ;  to  home  making  in  general.  For  the  last-named  work, 
use  should  be  made  of  the  model  flat  built  for  this  specific  purpose. 

This  will  leave  a  large  number  of  pupils  who,  under  ordinary 
circumstances,  would  leave  school  at  the  end  of  the  eighth  year, 
or  when  they  had  attended  a  half  year  or  more  at  a  high  school. 
During  the  year  and  a  half,  from  the  beginning  of  the  7 A  grade, 
the  aptitudes  of  these  pupils  have  been  tested  at  the  different  oc- 
cupational activities  carried  on  ;  their  general  intelligence  and  their 
special  powers  have  been  carefully  noted.  A  study  should  also 
have  been  made  of  their  home  conditions,  the  needs  of  the  family, 
etc.  The  principal  or  competent  teachers  should  have  held  inter- 
views with  the  parents  with  a  view  to  arriving  at  some  knowledge 
of  the  pupil's  aims  and  those  of  his  family.  The  "  vocational 
guide  "  should  proceed  to  suggest  what  line  of  work  the  pupil 
should  take  up. 

If  there  is  still  uncertainty  as  to  what  the  ultimate  choice  is  to 
be,  the  academic  course  should  be  recommended.  For  those  in- 
tending to  enter  business  the  commercial  course  should  be  urged, 
while  the  industrial  course  should  be  recommended  to  those  who 
wish  to  enter  one  of  the  trades. 

The  term  in  these  courses  should  be  one  and  a  half  years.  In 
this  way,  for  pupils  who  ordinarily  would  leave  school  at  the  end 
of  the  eighth  year,  we  shall  be  adding  a  year  to  their  school  career, 
giving  them  a  quality  and  a  degree  of  preparation  which  will  soon 
convince  parents  that  the  extra  time  spent  in  school  is  more  than 
compensated  for  by  the  increased  efficiency  —  yes,  and  the  in- 
creased earning  power  of  the  child  who  has  this  more  extended 
preparation.  It  may  be  urged  that  parents  will  not  be  able  to  afford 
to  keep  their  children  at  school  for  the  longer  period.  This  may 
very  well  be  true.  Still  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  where  legis- 
lation has  prolonged  the  compulsory  school-attendance  period, 
parents  have  found  the  means  to  support  their  children  at  school. 
When  the  grade  at  which  pupils  may  apply  for  employment  cer- 
tificates was  made  /A  instead  of  5B,  parents  resigned  themselves 


ELECTIVE  COURSES  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL     217 

to  the  inevitable  and  adapted  themselves  to  the  situation  as  best 
they  could.  Under  the  plan  set  forth,  however,  the  force  which 
compels  the  longer  stay  in  school  is  not  exercised  by  a  law  but  by 
the  self-interest  of  pupil  and  parent.  Is  it  not  reasonable  to  expect 
that  once  the  work  has  justified  itself,  parents  will  be  more  than 
willing  to  have  their  children  remain  in  school  for  the  extra  year  ? 

Many  graduates  from  our  elementary  schools  enter  a  business 
school  for  a  training  of  a  half  year.  The  commercial  course  which 
is  here  suggested  will  keep  many  pupils  in  the  school,  and  the  city 
will  for  the  first  time  be  meeting  a  need  which  has  for  many  years 
been  clearly  expressed  by  the  people  of  .the  community. 

The  records  show  that  large  numbers  of  the  pupils  who  enter 
our  high  schools  from  the  elementary  school  stay  in  the  secondary 
institutions  for  a  year  or  so  and  then  drop  out.  A  certain  percent- 
age of  this  "mortality"  has  been  rightly  attributed  to  the  inflexible 
course  of  study,  to  poor  teaching,  to  the  unpreparedness  of  the 
pupil  for  independent  study.  But  all  the  discharges  cannot  be 
traced  to  any  one  of  these  causes  or  to  any  combination  of  them. 
In  many  cases  parents  are  so  situated  that  they  can  afford  to  keep 
the  boy  or  girl  at  school  for  one  year,  but  no  longer.  Under  the 
present  system  the  only  place  for  such  pupils  to  go  to  is  the  high 
school.  They  are  not  really  a  part  of  the  student  body ;  they  cause 
an  unhealthy  condition  as  regards  size  of  classes  in  the  first  two 
terms ;  they  call  for  large  and  expensive  buildings ;  they  create 
problems  of  management,  of  organization,  of  discipline,  of  super- 
vision, which  inevitably  reduce  the  efficiency  of  the  school.  The 
pupils  who  have  come  to  the  high  school  for  the  purpose  of 
completing  the  entire  course  are  to  a  certain  extent  neglected 
because  of  the  great  number  of  transients  on  the  register. 

If  the  ninth  year  which  is  here  recommended  were  adopted, 
such  pupils  would  not  clog  and  clutter  up  the  administrative  and 
supervisory  channels  of  our  high  schools.  They  would  not  be  sent 
out  into  the  world  with  such  inadequate  equipment  as  must  neces- 
sarily result  from  a  truncated  course.  For  they  all  have  had  one 
fourth  of  some  subjects,  one  third  of  others,  one  half  of  still  others. 
Their  work  ends  nowhere.  They  have  no  general  culture ;  they 
have  no  special  training.  In  the  ninth  year,  however,  they  will 


218  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

receive  a  complete  course.  True,  they  cannot  get  as  much  training 
as  would  be  theirs  were  they  to  complete  the  entire  course  in  an 
academic,  a  manual  training,  or  a  commercial  high  school.  But 
they  will  be  far  more  efficient  than  the  derelict  high-school  student 
who  leaves  at  the  end  of  one  year,  who  does  not  know  what  he 
wants  to  do,  or  who,  if  he  does  know,  cannot  do  it  because  he 
has  had  no  training  for  it. 

The  planning  of  the  work  for  such  courses  calls  for  much  care- 
ful thought  and  systematic  preparation.  A  body  of  opinion  should 
first  be  gathered  from  men  of  affairs  representing  different  out- 
looks, different  occupations,  etc.  This  may  be  considered  the 
norm  by  which  to  test  any  course  that  may  be  evolved  by  educators. 
In  every  case  the  course  should  be  adapted  to  the  community, 
and  due  regard  should  be  had  for  the  kind  of  pupils  the  course 
is  intended  to  serve. 

There  may  be  some  doubt  whether  a  purely  academic  course 
should  find  a  place  in  a  ninth-year  school,  the  aim  of  which  is  to 
increase  vocational  efficiency.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  course  is 
intended  merely  to  relieve  the  situation  as  it  exists  in  our  classical 
high  schools  to-day.  Arrangements  should  be  made  whereby  pupils 
may  be  transferred  from  the  academic  course  to  either  the  indus- 
trial or  the  commercial,  as  soon  as  the  more  special  demand  makes 
itself  felt. 

The  academic  course  should  include  literature,  current  history, 
business  conditions,  business  arithmetic,  science,  civics,  music,  and 
physical  training.  If  possible  there  should  be  work  in  ethics  through 
organized  activities  involving  personal,  civic,  and  social  service. 

The  commercial  course  should  include  business  English,  office 
practice,  business  arithmetic,  commercial  geography,  and  book- 
keeping. 

The  industrial  course  should  cover  for  boys  and  for  girls  a 
complete  course  in  the  occupation,  the  training  to  extend  over 
the  full  year  and  a  half.  In  no  course  should  work  in  English, 
oral  and  written,  and  in  civics,  be  omitted. 

The  details  of  these  courses  must  be  worked  out  with  the 
greatest  care.  Much  preparatory  work  has  already  been  done. 
Analyses  have  been  made  of  some  of  the  industries,  and  the 


ELECTIVE  COURSES  IN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL     219 

processes  have  been  reduced  to  their  simplest  elements.  We  are 
coming  to  understand  better  the  principles  that  must  govern  the 
elimination  of  nonessentials  from  the  traditional  academic  and 
commercial  courses.  All  this,  however,  is  a  matter  of  time.  The 
experiments  will  be  tentative,  and  there  must  always  be  the  frank- 
est kind  of  self-criticism.  But  in  work  of  this  kind  lies  what  seems 
to  be  a  constructive  attempt  to  meet  one  phase  of  the  problem  of 
elementary-school  education  in  its  relation  to  the  efficiency  of  the 
individual  and  the  progress  of  the  state. 


CHARTING  CHILDHOOD  IN  CINCINNATI 

BY  HELEN  THOMPSON  WOOLLEY,  BUREAU  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE, 
CHILD  LABOR  DEPARTMENT,  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  OF  CINCINNATI 

(From  The  Survey,  August  9,  1913) 

When  a  pharmacist  compounds  a  prescription  he  knows  what 
effect  the  various  elements  have  on  each  other.  He  can  analyze 
them  even  after  they  have  interacted  with  the  juices  of  the  human 
system.  When  a  manufacturer  starts  a  piece  of  raw  material  on 
the  road  toward  a  finished  product,  he  can  account  for  the  smallest 
change,  the  minutest  process.  But  when  a  child  starts  on  the  bleak 
road  which  leads  from  one  deadening  occupation  to  another,  who 
can  chart  his  path  or  gauge  the  forces  that  mold  and  shape  his 
future  life  ? 

To  do  this  very  thing  is  becoming  one  of  the  paramount  purposes 
of  educators.  The  task  is  enlisting  the  interest  of  all  who  desire  a 
saner  conservation  of  childhood.  The  boy  and  girl  who  leave  school 
untrained,  adolescent,  groping,  are  more  and  more  seen  to  be  the 
rawest  of  raw  materials.  Society's  obligation  to  do  its  utmost  that 
this  material  may  increase  in  beauty  and  efficiency  is  no  longer 
thought  to  cease  when  the  school  door  closes. 

One  of  the  most  comprehensive  attempts  to  find  out  just  what 
industry  means  to  children  is  being  made  in  Cincinnati.  This  at- 
tempt was  made  possible  by  the  passage  three  years  ago  of  a  unique 
child-labor  law  which,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  gave  to  one  office 
sufficient  authority  over  the  working  children  of  a  community  to 
permit  a  many-sided  study  of  a  large  group  of  them.  While  this 
study  has  not  been  completed,  some  absorbing  discoveries  can  be 
forecasted,  entailing  some  equally  absorbing  reflections  on  current 
educational  movements.  For  example,  we  are  making  a  special  in- 
vestigation of  800  school  children,  as  a  result  of  which  we  hope  to 


CHARTING  CHILDHOOD  IN  CINCINNATI  221 

be  able  to  compare  the  rate  of  development,  mental  and  physical,  of 
those  in  industry  and  those  in  school.  It  will  then  be  possible  to  say 
what  is  the  effect  of  industry  on  children  who  enter  it  at  fourteen. 

But  let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  workings  of  the  law  itself. 
During  the  school  year  from  September  i,  1909,  to  September  I, 
1910,  3348  children  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  took 
out  certificates  permitting  them  to  work  in  Cincinnati.  The  follow- 
ing year  the  number  dropped  to  2800,  and  in  191 1-1912  the  num- 
ber of  beginning  child  laborers  went  down  to  2366.  This  was  a 
direct  result  of  the  child-labor  law.  The  first  drop  was  due  chiefly 
to  the  raising  of  the  educational  requirement  from  mere  ability  to 
read  and  write  to  the  completion  of  the  fifth  grade  in  school.  The 
second  was  the  effect  of  establishing  the  compulsory  continuation 
school  for  children  who  had  not  completed  the  eighth  grade. 

The  exemption  of  eighth-grade  children  from  the  continuation 
school  put  a  sort  of  cash  value  on  the  completion  of  the  eighth  grade 
which  held  many  in  school.  The  percentage  of  those  who  had  com- 
pleted the  eighth  grade  rose  from  13  per  cent  in  1910-1911  to 
19  per  cent  in  1911-1912.  Provisions  compelling  employers  to 
return  certificates  and  report  on  the  children,  as  well  as  allowing 
workers  to  attend  continuation  school  for  four  hours  a  week,  tended 
to  reduce  the  number  of  positions  open  to  children  under  sixteen, 
since  some  employers  preferred  to  dispense  with  juvenile  labor 
rather  than  conform  to  those  requirements.  We  have  no  measure 
of  the  importance  of  the  last  factor. 

Our  project  represents  an  interesting  form  of  private  cooperation 
with  the  public-school  system.  The  investigation  is  being  conducted 
by  the  Schmidlapp  Bureau  through  the  work-certificate  office,  which 
ordinarily  performs  the  function  of  issuing  work  certificates.  This 
office  is  a  subdivision  of  the  office  of  the  superintendent  of  schools, 
and  the  investigation  would  not  have  been  possible  without  the 
constant  support  of  both  the  former  superintendent,  Frank  B.  Dyer, 
and  the  present  one,  Randall  J.  Condon.  All  of  the  financial  bur- 
den of  the  investigation,  except  office  room  and  the  supplies  used 
in  issuing  the  certificates,  is  met  by  a  group  of  private  citizens.1 

'•   l  The  investfgation  was  planned  and  the  funds  collected  by  Miss  Edith  Campbell  of  the 
Schmidlapp  Bureau  and   E.  N.  Clopper  of  the  National  Child  Labor  Committee.    The 


222  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

By  assuming  the  responsibility  of  issuing  work  certificates,  those 
conducting  the  investigation  secured  complete  control  of  the  mate- 
rial for  research.  By  a  unique  provision  of  the  law,  employers  are 
required  to  return  certificates  to  the  issuing  office  and  children  to 
have  the  certificates  reissued  each  time  there  is  a  change  of  position. 
The  certificate  office  is  thereby  given  a  measure  of  supervision  over 
working  children  up  to  the  age  of  sixteen  and  is  enabled  to  enforce 
the  regulations  about  the  kinds  of  work  permitted  children  as  well 
as  those  concerning  the  hours  of  employment. 

The  work  of  the  bureau  is  therefore  divided  into  two  parts  :  first, 
that  of  issuing  certificates  and  keeping  records  of  all  working  chil- 
dren, and,  second,  that  of  investigating  intensively  a  large  group  of 
working  children. 

Every  child  who  applies  for  a  work  certificate  must  present  four 
credentials :  first,  a  satisfactory  health  record  from  a  physician  of 
the  Board  of  Health  ;  second,  a  legal  birth  record  proving  that  he 
is  at  least  fourteen  years  of  age ;  third,  a  school  record  showing 
that  he  has  completed  at  least  the  fifth  grade ;  and  fourth,  a  con- 
tract signed  by  his  future  employer.  By  the  time  a  child  has  been 
sent  back  three  or  four  times,  as  is  often  necessary  to  secure  all  four 
records  in  proper  form,  the  process  of  taking  out  a  work  certificate 
becomes  a  far  more  serious  ordeal  than  in  the  days  of  old. 

When  certificates  are  issued,  all  children  who  have  not  completed 
the  eighth  grade — and  these  constitute  eight  tenths  of  the  total  — 
must  be  assigned  to  a  continuation  school.  Notice  of  the  assign- 
ment is  sent  to  both  the  school  and  the  employer.  The  time  re- 
quired by  the  continuation  school  is  four  hours  a  week,  and  each 
employer  has  an  opportunity,  when  he  signs  the  child's  contract,  to 
indicate  the  school  and  hours  which  he  prefers.  If  he  expresses 
no  preference  the  office  makes  the  assignment. 

Schmidlapp  Bureau,  through  the  generosity  of  J.  G.  Schmidlapp,  bears  one  half  of  the 
expense.  The  other  contributors  are  W.  H.  Alms,  L.  A.  Ault,  Mrs.  Thomas  J.  Emery, 
Edward  Senior,  John  B.  Scarborough,  Sidney  Pritz,  James  N.  Gamble,  Harry  Levy, 
Omer  T.  Glenn. 

The  staff  consists  of  Helen  Thompson  Woolley,  director,  Charlotte  Rust  Fischer,  Rose 
E.  Rankins,  and  William  A.  Spencer,  laboratory  investigators ;  M.  Louise  Boswell,  home 
visitor;  Annis  E.  Alden,  issuer  of  certificates,  and  Emma  Day,  assistant  in  the  certificate 
office.  Since  the  above  was  written  Mr.  Spencer  has  resigned  and  his  place  has  been  taken 
by  E.  S.  Jones. 


CHARTING  CHILDHOOD  IN  CINCINNATI          223 

But  this  does  not  end  the  formalities.  The  law  requires  that  upon 
the  termination  of  employment  the  certificate  must  be  returned  by 
mail  to  the  issuing  office,  accompanied  by  a  statement  as  to  when 
and  why  the  child  left.  The  question  of  enforcing  this  requirement 
will  be  discussed  later.  When  a  child  takes  another  position  he 
must  present  to  the  office  a  contract  signed  by  his  new  employer. 
The  certificate  is  then  reissued  on  a  form  like  the  original  one  and 
mailed  to  the  employer.  The  child  is  again  assigned  to  a  continu- 
ation school,  and  both  school  and  employer  are  notified.  A  full 
record  of  all  these  proceedings,  except  the  assignment  to  a  contin- 
uation school,  is  kept.  In  addition  to  these  necessary  records,  the 
office  is  noting  also  wages  and  the  children's  reasons  for  changes 
of  position.  A  second  card  of  employment  is  made  out  for  each 
child  and  placed  in  a  file  classified  by  employers,  so  that  the  office 
has  an  industrial  history  not  only  of  each  child  but  also  of  each 
employer  in  so  far  as  his  dealings  with  child  labor  are  concerned. 

The  two  provisions  of  the  law  which  are  difficult  of  enforcement 
are  the  one  which  states  that  no  child  under  sixteen  shall  work 
without  a  certificate,  and  the  one  which  forbids  children  under 
sixteen  and  girls  under  eighteen  to  work  more  than  eight  hours 
a  day. 

The  first  difficulty  breaks  up  into  two  distinct  problems.  The 
first  is  how  to  prevent  children  from  taking  an  initial  position  with- 
out a  certificate  ;  the  second,  how  to  prevent  those  who  have  already 
had  a  certificate  from  taking  another  position  without  a  reissuing 
of  the  certificate. 

Close  cooperation  with  the  schools  is  our  method  of  dealing  with 
the  first  problem.  Of  course  some  children,  on  first  coming  to  the 
city,  may  not  be  sent  to  school  at  all.  The  difficulty  here  is  the 
general  one  of  enforcing  the  compulsory  education  law.  We  deal 
with  them  as  we  deal  with  all  who  take  employment  without  a  cer- 
tificate and  rely  on  the  factory  inspector.  This  is  our  only  recourse, 
but  Cincinnati  is  fortunate  in  having  a  factory  inspector  who  under- 
stands the  certificate  system  and  who  cooperates  by  sending  to  the 
office  all  children  for  whom  the  employers  cannot  show  certifi- 
cates. Nearly  all  employers  of  large  numbers  of  children  are  now 
scrupulous  about  demanding  certificates.  If  is  only  occasional  and 


224  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

inexperienced  ones  who  take  children  without  them.  We  believe 
that  the  number  of  those  who  evade  the  law  is  small.  During  the 
last  year  the  factory  inspector  has  found  only  six  children  work- 
ing without  certificates,  though  the  same  inspector  in  previous  years 
has  found  hundreds. 

To  prevent  children  who  have  legally  held  one  position  from  tak- 
ing a  second  without  reissuing  the  certificate  is  a  different  problem. 
The  key  to  this  situation  is  the  requirement  of  the  return  of  the 
certificate  by  the  employer  to  our  office.  In  a  majority  of  cases  this 
is  done.  Sometimes  the  child  informs  the  office  that  he  has  left, 
and  sometimes  our  first  notice  of  the  change  is  when  the  child 
comes  in  for  a  second  position.  Several  times  we  have  verified 
long  series  of  employment  records  and  have  found  that  by  one  or 
another  of  these  checks  we  have  kept  records  of  over  90  per  cent 
of  the  changes  in  positions. 

More  difficult  still  is  the  enforcement  of  the  eight-hour  day  for 
children.  When  each  certificate  is  issued  the  employer  is  notified 
of  the  legal  number  of  hours.  The  children  themselves  are  asked 
about  their  working  hours  and  reports  of  violations  are  sent  at  once 
to  the  factory  inspector.  From  its  file  of  employers  the  office  can 
give  the  factory  inspector  a  list  of  all  the  children  under  sixteen 
employed  by  any  firm  which  is  reported  for  violation  of  hours. 
This  information  is  of  great  value  in  making  investigations  and  in 
securing  evidence. 

While  there  are  other  devices  by  which  we  minimize  violation  of 
law,  I  have  indicated  enough  to  show  how  effectively  such  a  meas- 
ure may  be  administered.  The  best  evidence  of  what  its  enforce- 
ment means  to  the  childhood  of  Cincinnati  is  to  be  had,  of  course, 
in  the  figures  quoted  at  the  outset  of  this  article.  These  show  the 
tremendous  drop  since  the  law  went  into  effect  in  the  number  of 
immature  youths  going  untrained  into  factory  and  workshop. 

I  have  said  that  2366  children  between  14  and  16  took  out  work 
certificates  last  year.  A  careful  classification  has  been  made  of 
these,  showing  the  type  and  location  of  the  schools  from  which  the 
children  came,  their  age,  school  grade,  and  the  kind  of  work  in 
which  they  are  now  engaged.  Cincinnati,  like  other  cities,  has  both 
public  and  church  schools.  Forty-three  per  cent  of  the  total  were 


CHARTING  CHILDHOOD  IN  CINCINNATI          225 

from  church  schools  and  5  7  per  cent  from  public.  While  the  exact 
enrollment  of  the  church  schools  is  not  given  out,  it  is  known  that 
the  enrollment  of  the  public  schools  is  about  three  times  that  of 
the  other.  The  proportion,  therefore,  of  those  leaving  the  church 
schools  is  more  than  twice  that  of  those  leaving  the  public  schools. 
Over  34  per  cent  of  those  leaving  the  public  schools  are  fifteen 
years  of  age,  while  only  18  per  cent  of  those  leaving  the  church 
schools  are  that  old.  But  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  children  from 
the  church  schools  are  younger,  more  of  them  are  in  the  higher 
grades.  This  is  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  the  public  school  is 
losing  chiefly  its  retarded  children,  while  the  church  school,  which 
sends  into  industry  twice  as  large  a  proportion  of  its  children,  is 
losing  both  retarded  and  normal  children.  Differences  in  methods 
of  grading  children  may  also  be  a  factor.  A  comparison  of  the 
retardation  of  children  who  leave  the  public  schools  to  go  to  work 
with  that  of  the  children  who  remain  in  school  shows  that  twice 
as  large  a  proportion  of  working  children  are  retarded  as  of  school 
children. 

The  occupations  entered  by  the  children  can  be  grouped  as  fol- 
lows :  factories,  33  per  cent  (19  per  cent  shoe,  4  per  cent  paper  box, 
2  per  cent  candy,  and  8  per  cent  miscellaneous  factories) ;  errand 
boys  and  girls,  22.5  per  cent  (5  per  cent  public  messenger  service 
and  17.5  per  cent  private  business  houses);  department  stores, 
15.5  per  cent ;  tailoring  and  sewing  trades,  8.7  per  cent ;  helping 
parents  at  home,  6.8  per  cent;  and  the  remaining  13.5  per  cent 
scattered  among  many  occupations. 

Very  little  of  the  work  represented  has  any  value  as  trade  edu- 
cation. Each  child  in  the  shoe  factory  performs  from  one  to  three 
of  the  1 50  or  more  operations  necessary  in  making  a  shoe.  They 
lace  shoes,  ink  edges,  or  wet  soles.  The  girls  in  tailor  shops  pull 
bastings  or  baste  one  kind  of  seam.  The  messenger-service  and 
errand-boy  positions  are  notoriously  blind-alley  occupations.  The 
department  stores  use  these  young  children  for  inside  errands  and 
for  wrapping  packages.  A  few  of  them  may  have  a  chance  to  be- 
come saleswomen  if  they  are  fitted  for  it,  but  in  Cincinnati  sales- 
women are  paid  such  low  wages  that  the  occupation  can  scarcely 
be  classed  as  skilled. 


226  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

It  is  a  safe  statement  that  only  a  very  small  percentage  of  chil- 
dren who  work  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  years  make  any  real  gain 
in  general  industrial  efficiency. 

The  wages  paid  to  a  group  of  over  2000  children  are  graphically 
represented  in  a  chart.  The  wages  represent  what  was  paid  at  the 
start,  in  each  of  the  first  five  positions,  provided  that  many  were 
held.  The  median  wage  for  girls  is  $3  and  for  boys  $3.75  a  week. 
There  is  a  sex  difference  in  wages  throughout.  In  their  first  posi- 
tions as  well  as  in  subsequent  ones,  girls  receive  about  75  cents  a 
week  less  than  boys.  The  charts  also  show  that  both  boys  and  girls 
better  themselves  in  wages  by  mere  change  of  position.  There  is 
a  larger  proportion  of  children  at  the  lower  wage  in  first  positions. 
With  subsequent  positions  the  proportion  at  the  lower  wage  de- 
creases and  the  proportion  in  the  higher  wage  increases.  Other 
statistics,  not  yet  published,  show  that  the  increase  in  earnings 
obtained  by  changes  of  position  is  greater  than  that  obtained  by 
sticking  to  one  job  for  a  year.  The  point  is  an  interesting  one  to 
bring  to  the  attention  of  employers  when  they  complain  about  the 
instability  of  child  labor. 

The  eight  hundred  boys  and  girls  of  whom  we  are  making  a 
special  study  were  fourteen  years  old  when  they  left  school  to  be- 
gin work.  All  of  them  were  entering  some  industry,  not  merely 
helping  at  home.  All  were  native-born  white  children.  Except 
for  these  characteristics  the  children  were  taken  at  random,  as  fast 
as  our  office  force  would  permit.  We  feel  sure  that  the  series 
adequately  represents  the  whole  group. 

The  scope  of  the  investigation  includes  a  study  of  the  mental 
and  physical  development  of  children  in  industry  as  compared  with 
children  of  corresponding  age  and  grade  who  stay  in  school.  We 
are  visiting  and  comparing  the  homes  of  both  working  children  and 
school  children.  We  are  studying  in  detail  the  industrial  life  of 
the  working  children.  Finally,  we  are  investigating  the  industries 
themselves  in  which  the  children  engage. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  we  hope  to  be  able  to  com- 
pare the  rate  of  mental  and  physical  development  of  children  in 
industry  with  that  of  children  in  school.  We  can  also  study  the 
children  who  do  not  succeed  industrially  and  find  out  whether  their 


CHARTING  CHILDHOOD  IN  CINCINNATI          227 

failure  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  children  themselves,  to  the  home, 
to  the  school,  or  to  the  industry.  By  discovering  what  relation  there 
is,  if  any,  between  a  child's  mental  and  physical  tests  and  his  suc- 
cess or  failure  in  various  kinds  of  industry,  we  can  throw  some  light 

on  the  problem  of 

CHART  I  —  AGE  ..        ,       ., 

vocational  guidance. 
PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  Although  Munster- 

•••>.  s--.:-,r.r  ..-.-•.•  :.--,  -;...-••,-:':•>  ,'••  •-;-..-..-  berg  and  others  have 

CHURCH  SCHOOLS  ginnings    in   deter- 

14  ••••••^^••••••^••^^^•••iM    mining     vocational 

15  MMBHMH  guidance     by     the 

psychological   labo- 

ratory, no  one  knows  just  how  useful  this  means  will  eventually 
prove.  Such  a  correlation  as  we  can  make  between  the  record  in 
tests  and  the  industrial  record  will  help  to  decide  the  question.  A 
set  of  norms  that  can  be  used  in  any  group  as  a  basis  of  diagnosis 
is  being  established,  and  this  will  be  of  great  importance  if  the 
laboratory  method  proves  useful. 

Meanwhile  all  the  records  we  are  collecting  about  the  industrial 
experiences  of  the  children  themselves  —  the  kind  of  work  open 
to  them,  their  earnings,  increases  of  pay,  the  amount  of  unemploy- 
ment among  them,  their  reasons  for  changes  of  position,  and  their 
attitude  toward  work  and  school  —  will  be  indispensable  in  deciding 

upon  a   pro- 

,.    j  CHART  II  —  GRADE 

gramot  mdus- 

.  .     ,        .  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  CHURCH  SCHOOLS 

trial  education 

r 
or    of    voca- 

tional  guid- 
ance. A  study 
oftheindus- 


tries  is  equally 

necessary  in  both  these  problems.  The  information  about  indus- 
tries may  be  cast  in  the  form  of  bulletins  for  the  use  of  teachers 
and  parents. 

Mental  and  physical  examinations  have  now  been  made  of  all  the 
800  children  at  the  time  they  started  to  work.    Seven  hundred  of 


228  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

them  have  been  retested  at  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  work  and 
200  at  the  end  of  the  second  year.  A  group  of  school  children 
has  been  selected  to  conform  in  grade  to  the  working  children  and 
400  of  them  have  been  tested.  Only  the  first  series  of  tests  with 
working  children  has  been  evaluated  and  tabulated.  The  outcome 
shows  that  the  tests  will  furnish  a  reliable  basis  of  comparison.  In 
all  of  the  mental  tests  the  children  from  the  higher  grades  did 
better  than  those  from  the  lower  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  were 
all  of  the  same  age.  In  other  words,  tests  showed  a  high  degree 
of  correlation  with  school  grade.  The  tests  then  are  almost  or  quite 
as  efficient  in  classifying  children  according  to  mental  ability  as  is 
the  school,  and  we  can  feel  confident  that  comparisons  between 
school  children  and  working  children  made  by  this  means  will  yield 
reliable  results. 

The  belief  that  girls  develop  mentally  more  rapidly  than  boys  is 
confirmed  by  the  tests.  At  fourteen,  the  girls  are  superior  to  the 
boys  in  all  the  mental  tests.  Physically  they  are  superior  in  height 
and  weight  and  in  coordination,  but  the  boys  are  superior  in  strength 
and  rapidity  of  movement. 

When  the  series  of  psychological  tests  is  published  in  detail  with 
careful  directions  both  for  giving  them  and  for  evaluating  the  re- 
sults, a  set  of  norms  will  be  furnished  for  fourteen-year-old  children 
which  can  be  used  for  many  purposes.  One  of  the  most  interesting 
will  be  the  comparison  in  mental  development  of  older  delinquents 
with  normal  fourteen-year-old  children  —  an  application  which  is 
already  being  made  by  Dr.  Jean  Weidensall  at  Bedford  Reformatory, 
New  York. 

While  only  300  of  the  homes  of  working  children  have  as  yet 
been  visited,  the  children  themselves  have  answered  questions  which 
throw  light  on  the  degree  of  economic  necessity  which  drives  them 
forth  to  work  at  so  early  an  age.  These  questions  have  to  do  with 
the  family  and  home  life,  occupations  of  parents,  number  of  chil- 
dren, number  of  rooms  occupied  by  the  family,  presence  of  lodgers, 
disposition  of  the  children's  earnings  and  attitude  toward  work 
and  school. 

Under  the  direction  of  the  National  Child  Labor  Committee, 
all  the  records  bearing  on  the  economic  status  of  the  families  have 


CHARTING  CHILDHOOD  IN  CINCINNATI          229 

been  studied.  After  inadequate  records  had  been  rejected,  there  re- 
mained a  group  of  650  families  about  whom  it  seemed  possible  to 
draw  conclusions  as  to  economic  necessity.  The  question  which  we 
tried  to  answer  with  regard  to  each  family  was  whether  the  child's 
earnings  were  essential  to  maintain  the  family  without  assistance 
from  outside.  And  the  outcome  was  similar  to  that  of  the  govern- 
ment investigation  and  to  those  of  Massachusetts  and  New  York. 
Only  27  per  cent  of  the  families  were  believed  to  require  the  earn- 
ings of  the  children,  while  73  per  cent  had  apparently  no  such 
economic  need.  This  is  one  more  proof  that  necessity  is  not  the 
most  potent  force  behind  child  labor. 

The  other  face  of  the  picture  is  that  the  majority  of  children 
declared  that  they  were  tired  of  school  and  anxious  to  go  to  work. 
The  parents  were  sometimes  equally  ready  to  have  children  work, 
sometimes  indiffer- 
ent, and  sometimes  CHART  III  -  RETARDATION 
merely  overruled  by                 IN  SCHOOL  AT  WORK 
the  child's  eager-                                Atead  of  Grade 
ness.     We    found                                     Normal 
very  few  cases,  if    •••^^^•••^•B  ^^•••^ 

J  .  Retarded 

child  who  wished 

to  stay  in  school  and  whose  parents  could  have  afforded  to  let 
him  was  forced  by  them  to  go  to  work.  Even  after  trying  it,  the 
children  continue  to  prefer  work  to  school. 

We  now  have  a  full  industrial  history  covering  a  year  or  more 
for  700  working  children.  In  a  tabulation  of  474  of  these  histories, 
it  was  discovered  that  the  median  weekly  wage  for  girls  for  the  year 
is  $3  and  for  boys  $3-75-  Of  the  industries  employing  children  in 
considerable  numbers,  the  department  store  paid  the  lowest  wage 
to  both  boys  and  girls.  Here,  as  in  most  communities,  the  highest 
wage  was  paid  to  boys  by  the  most  injurious  occupation  —  the 
public  messenger  service.  Shoe  factories  paid  the  next  best  wage 
to  boys  and  the  best  wage  of  all  to  girls. 

The  amount  of  unemployment  among  working  children  has  been 
a  matter  of  frequent  comment.  With  regard  to  this  group  of  chil- 
dren, 50  per  cent  of  the  girls  and  60  per  cent  of  the  boys  were 


230  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

employed  for  the  entire  52  weeks  of  the  year.  Only  one  tenth  of 
the  boys  were  unemployed  for  twelve  weeks  or  more  out  of  the  year, 
while  one  tenth  of  the  girls  were  unemployed  one  half  the  time  or 
more.  Thirty  eight  per  cent  of  the  boys  and  45  per  cent  of  the 
girls  had  held  but  one  position  during  the  year,  while  4  per  cent 
of  the  boys  and  3  per  cent  of  the  girls  had  held  more  than  four 

CHART  IV  — WAGES 
GIRLS  BOYS 


positions.    The  median  number  of  positions  during  the  year  for 
both  boys  and  girls  was  two. 

Each  time  a  child  changes  his  position  the  office  makes  a  record 
of  his  reason  for  the  change.  A  study  of  the  reasons  assigned  in 
700  cases  showed  that  41  per  cent  were  included  under  economic 
reasons.  In  60  per  cent  of  these  the  child  had  voluntarily  left  be- 
cause the  pay  was  low  or  because  a  better  position  was  offered  him 
or  because  he  wanted  to  learn  a  trade.  In  the  remaining  cases  the 
employer  had  either  laid  the  child  off  or  reduced  his  earnings  be- 
cause of  slack  season.  The  next  largest  group  of  reasons,  20  per 
cent,  was  that  of  dissatisfaction  on  the  part  of  the  child  for  reasons 


CHARTING  CHILDHOOD  IN  CINCINNATI          231 

other  than  economic,  such  as  work  too  dirty,  workroom  too  noisy, 
could  not  bear  the  smell  of  paste,  fellow  employees  too  rough,  afraid 
of  lead  poisoning,  foreman  cross  and  "  hollered  "  at  him,  or  unjustly 
charged  with  spoiled  materials.  Physical  reasons,  such  as  illness 
or  work  which  proved  to  be  too  hard  physically,  account  for  1 1  per 
cent  of  the  changes.  The  same  proportion  is  due  to  failures  on  the 
part  of  the  child,  which  the  children  themselves  report  almost  as 
frequently  as  the  employers.  Disagreement  either  with  foremen 
or  with  fellow  employees  and  incompetence  make  up  most  of  this 
group.  Reasons  connected  with  the  home  comprise  9  per  cent  of  the 
whole  number  and  conflicts  with  the  child-labor  law  the  remaining 
8  per  cent. 

I  want  to  discuss  now  two  of  the  applications  to  educational 
problems  which  some  of  these  facts  bear.  The  first  deals  with 
the  placement  bureau  for  children  under  sixteen  as  part  of  a  pro- 
gram for  vocational  guidance  in  the  public  schools.  Sometimes  the 
term  "vocational  guidance"  is  taken  to  mean  little  more  than  a  well- 
conducted  placement  bureau.  The  facts  we  have  presented  seem 
to  me  to  throw  serious  doubt  upon  the  wisdom  of  allowing  the  pub- 
lic school  to  undertake  the  placing  in  industry  of  children  under 
sixteen.  There  is  no  work  open  to  them  worth  advising  them 
to  take.  If  the  schools  take  over  placement  work,  it  may  have  the 
effect  of  legalizing  and  perpetuating  a  condition  which  it  ought  to 
be  opposing ;  that  is,  allowing  children  under  sixteen  to  leave 
school  for  work.  If  the  school  could  lend  all  its  energies  to  read- 
justing its  system  of  instruction  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  children 
who  are  now  leaving,  and  thus  hold  them  in  school,  it  would  be 
rendering  a  far  greater  service  than  it  could  in  finding  for  them 
jobs  which,  at  best,  are  of  no  real  advantage  to  the  child. 

The  placement  bureau,  it  may  be  said,  has  the  virtue  of  bringing 
the  schools  into  immediate  contact  with  the  industries  —  but  con- 
tinuation schools  do  it  even  better.  The  placement  bureau  is  also 
one  means  of  investigating  the  conditions  in  industry,  but  it  is  not 
the  only  means,  and  may  have  dangers  inherent  in  it.  No  place- 
ment bureau  which  deals  with  large  numbers  of  children  under 
sixteen  can  avoid  putting  many  of  them  in  thoroughly  undesirable 
positions,  provided  it  places  them  at  all.  It  seems  much  more 


232  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

pernicious  for  the  public  school  to  place  a  child  in  an  injurious  occu- 
pation than  for  the  child  to  place  himself.  The  influence  which 
can  be  brought  to  bear  on  the  industries  themselves  through  such 
a  bureau  is  necessarily  small,  because  child  labor  is  not  essential 
to  most  industries. 

The  second  application  I  wish  to  make  deals  with  a  problem  also 
previously  discussed  in  The  Surrey  —  the  question  as  to  whether 
vocational  and  industrial  schools  shall  be  organized  from  within  our 
present  school  system  and  kept  in  organic  relation  with  it,  or  shall 
be  organized  under  a  separate  board  made  up  not  from  the  leaders 
of  education  but  from  the  leaders  in  industry.  I  would  like  to  ask 
this  question  :  Have  the  dealings  of  industry  with  children  in  the 
past  been  such  as  to  warrant  the  state  in  turning  over  the  training 
of  the  children  destined  for  industry  to  the  forces  of  industry  itself  ? 
The  report  I  have  given  shows  the  status  of  children  under  one  of 
the  best  child-labor  laws  in  the  country,  well  enforced.  There  is 
very  little  suggestion  of  an  educational  attitude  on  the  part  of  in- 
dustry towards  the  children.1  The  undoubted  educational  possibili- 
ties of  the  industries  are  left  undeveloped,  and  it  is  exceedingly 
rare  to  have  an  interest  in  the  development  of  the  children  prom- 
inent in  the  mind  of  the  employer.  This  is  a  state  of  mind  which 
is  quite  understandable.  With  the  best  intentions  the  employer 
can  scarcely  avoid  viewing  the  educational  problem  first  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  welfare  of  the  industry.  He  wants  more  effi- 
cient workmen,  first  of  all  because  the  industry  would  profit  by 
them.  In  his  mind  the  welfare  of  the  worker  must  be  a  secondary 
result  of  the  success  of  the  industry,  and  he  has  scant  patience 
with  anyone  who  suggests  molding  the  industry  to  fit  the  needs 
of  the  workers. 

Now  there  is  undoubtedly  a  sense  in  which  the  welfare  of  the 
worker  is  secondary  to  the  success  of  the  industry.  It  is  an  obvious 
enough  fact  that  the  industry  must  be  successful  enough  to  exist, 
or  the  worker  cannot  earn  his  living  by  it.  But  when  the  scale 
which  measures  the  success  of  the  industry  is  solely  the  profits  of 

1  The  continuation  schools  for  machine-shop  apprentices  and  for  printers'  apprentices  in 
Cincinnati,  which  were  started  by  the  industries,  are  important  exceptions  to  this  statement, 
though  they  apply  only  to  children  over  sixteen  years  of  age. 


CHARTING  CHILDHOOD  IN  CINCINNATI          233 

the  employer  it  ceases  to  be  true  that  the  welfare  of  the  industry 
and  that  of  the  worker  must  be  the  same. 

It  makes  a  very  great  difference,  then,  whether  those  who  mold 
the  system  of  industrial  education  in  this  country  have  as  their  im- 
mediate object  the  development  of  industries  in  which  the  workers 
are  first  of  all  parts  of  the  machine,  or  the  development  of  well- 
rounded,  intelligent  citizens,  who  shall  possess  specific  industrial 
ability  as  one  phase  of  their  training.  The  habit  of  mind  of  the 
educator  would  lead  him  to  take  the  latter  attitude,  and  that  of  the 
leader  of  industry  the  former. 

But  the  plan  would  be  objectionable  even  if  industry  were  so 
socialized  that  its  leaders  could  be  expected  to  view  the  problem  of 
industrial  education  first  from  the  standpqint  of  the  development 
of  the  individual  child.  It  would  mean  a  sharp  separation  at  a 
comparatively  early  age  of  the  children  destined  for  industry  from 
those  destined  for  academic  and  professional  careers.  The  decision 
would  inevitably  be  made  rather  on  the  basis  of  the  economic  status 
of  the  family  than  on  that  of  the  child's  fitness.  The  plan  would 
lead  us  directly  towards  class  distinctions  of  a  thoroughly  undem- 
ocratic sort.  As  John  Dewey  has  declared  :  "  Those  who  believe 
in  the  continued  separate  existence  of  what  they  are  pleased  to  call 
the  lower  classes  or  the  laboring  classes,  would  naturally  rejoice  to 
have  schools  in  which  those  classes  would  be  segregated.  And  some 
employers  of  labor  would  doubtless  rejoice  to  have  schools,  sup- 
ported by  public  taxation,  supply  them  with  additional  food  for  their 
mills.  All  others  should  be  united  against  every  proposition,  in 
whatever  form  advanced,  to  separate  training  of  employees  from 
training  for  citizenship,  training  of  intelligence  and  character  from 
training  for  narrow  industrial  efficiency."  1 

1  See  The  Survey  of  March  22,  1913,  p.  870. 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  OF  EIGHT  HUN- 
DRED  IOWA  BOYS   IN   RELATION   TO  THE   PROB- 
LEMS OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

BY  ERVIN  E.  LEWIS,  ASSOCIATE  PROFESSOR  OF  EDUCATION 

(Published  by  the  University,  Iowa  City,  Iowa) 

SCOPE  "OF  THE   INVESTIGATION 

The  original  intention  in  this  investigation  was  to  interview 
1000  boys  of  Iowa,  from  sixteen  to  twenty  years  of  age,  who  had 
not  completed  a  course  in  a  high  school,  and  to  secure  from  each 
an  accurate  statement  of  his  vocational  progress  since  leaving  school. 
The  investigators  were  instructed  to  go  directly  to  the  boys,  to 
explain  briefly  to  them  the  purpose  of  the  investigation,  and  to 
ask  for  their  cooperation.  A  printed  card  containing  the  following 
questions  was  formulated  and  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  investi- 
gators. All  of  the  questions  were  to  be  answered  by  each  boy. 

What  is  the  boy's  name? 

What  is  his  present  age  (nearest  birthday),  and  address  ? 

What  grade  does  he  say  he  was  in  at  the  time  he  left  school  ? 

What  was  his  age  at  that  time  ? 

What  is  the  name  and  location  of  the  school  he  last  attended  ? 

What  was  his  reason  (or  reasons)  for  leaving  school  ? 

How  long  after  leaving  school  was  he  idle  before  he  secured  work  ? 

How  many  different  jobs  has  he  been  in  since  leaving  school  ? 

For  each  job  he  has  been  in,  answer  the  following  questions : 

Kind  of  job ; 

Kind  of  business ; 

How  he  found  the  job  ; 
How  long  he  was  in  it ; 

His  average  weekly  wages ; 

(a)  When  he  started  the  job,  and 

(b)  When  he  left  it ; 

234 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  235 

The  length  of  time  idle  between  jobs ; 
The  reason  for  changing  jobs ; 
What  trade  if  any  does  the  boy  now  desire  to  prepare  for? 

About  900  boys  in  Des  Moines  and  100  boys  in  Sioux  City 
were  interviewed  by  the  investigators.  Nearly  20  per  cent  of  them 
were  reached  on  holidays  and  during  the  evenings  in  pool  halls 
and  on  the  street.  Returns  from  about  80  per  cent  were  secured 
during  working  hours  through  the  cooperation  of  employers,  more 
than  200  of  whom  were  interviewed.  Only  two  employers  regarded 
the  investigators  with  suspicion  and  refused  to  allow  the  boys  in 
their  establishments  to  be  interviewed.  Reliable  data  were  received 
from  more  than  800  boys.  The  remaining  cases  are  excluded  from 
this  report,  because  the  replies  were  not  complete. 

The  investigators  are  aware  that  one  cannot  depend  too  much 
upon  the  memory  of  boys  of  these  ages.  The  errors  are  larger 
and  more  numerous  than  desired.  On  the  other  hand,  the  selec- 
tion is  one  of  pure  chance  and  the  errors  to  some  extent  counter- 
balance each  other.  Although  the  data  are  not  so  reliable  as 
desired,  they  are  at  all  events  approximate  and  certainly  are  better 
than  any  other  data  at  present  available  upon  the  same  subject. 

AGE  OF  THE  BOYS  AT  THE  TIME  OF  THE  INVESTIGATION 

Of  the  boys  whose  ages  were  known  I  was  twelve  years  old  at 
the  time  of  the  investigation,  2  were  thirteen  years  old,  17  were 
fourteen  years  old,  58  were  fifteen  years  old,  101'  were  sixteen 
years  old,  139  were  seventeen  years  old,  126  were  eighteen  years 
old,  131  were  nineteen  years  old,  93  were  twenty  years  old,  89 
were  twenty-one  years  old,  6 1  were  twenty-two  years  old,  and  i 
was  twenty-four  years  old.  These  figures  show  that  507  boys,  or 
60  per  cent  of  those  investigated,  were  from  sixteen  to  nineteen 
years  of  age.  No  effort  was  made  on  the  part  of  the  investigators 
to  select  boys  below  sixteen  or  boys  above  twenty.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  were  definitely  instructed  to  secure  as  many  cases  as 
possible  of  boys  from  sixteen  to  nineteen  years  of  age.  All  of  the 
boys  lived  when  interviewed  either  in  Sioux  City  or  Des  Moines. 
However,  they  had  not  always  lived  in  these  places,  as  is  shown 
by  a  study  of  the  location  of  the  schools  which  they  last  attended. 


236  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

LOCATION   OF  THE  SCHOOLS  WHICH  THE  BOYS  LAST 
ATTENDED 

More  than  40  per  cent  of  the  boys  came  from  schools  located 
outside  of  the  city  in  which  they  were  living  when  interviewed. 

Four  hundred  and  fifty-five  (52  per  cent)  came  from  62  dif- 
ferent schools  located  in  Des  Moines  ;  150  (17  per  cent)  came 
from  schools  located  in  107  cities  and  towns  in  Iowa  outside  of 
Des  Moines  and  Sioux  City  ;  117(13  per  cent)  came  from  27  dif- 
ferent states  other  than  Iowa ;  4 1  (nearly  5  per  cent)  came  from 
8  different  foreign  countries.  The  remaining  boys  came  from 
schools  located  in  or  near  Sioux  City. 

These  facts  are  rather  significant  to  those  interested  in  train- 
ing boys  for  the  various  vocations.  If  these  figures  are  accurate, 
^.O per  cent  of  the  boys  at  work  in  the  various  pursuits  receive  their 
training  in  schools  located  outside  of  the  cities  in  which  they  are 
working.  Boys  trained  in  the  various  vocations  in  the  public  schools 
of  a  city  would  come  in  competition  with  boys  coming  into  the 
city  from  other  cities  and  states  of  the  country.  In  other  words, 
the  city  would  not  be  able  to  train  all  of  the  boys  for  any  kind  of 
pursuit  without  a  compulsory  system  of  continuation  school  attend- 
ance, which  would  operate  across  not  only  the  boys  leaving  the 
schools  of  that  city  but  also  across  the  boys  leaving  schools  located 
in  other  cities  and  coming  to  that  city. 

AGE  AND  GRADE  AT  WHICH  THE  BOYS  LEFT  SCHOOL 

Each  boy  was  questioned  as  to  the  grade  he  was  in  at  the  time 
he  left  school.  While  the  answers  received  in  this  way  are  not 
so  reliable  as  may  be  desired,  they  are  sufficient  to  indicate  the 
general  tendency  of  boys  of  this  class.  It  would  be  much  better 
to  get  their  records  from  the  schools  which  they  left,  but  this  was 
impossible,  inasmuch  as  many  of  them  left  schools  located  outside 
of  Des  Moines  and  Sioux  City. 

From  our  data  it  may  be  seen  that  relatively  few  of  the  boys 
leave  school  before  they  are  fourteen  years  old  and  before  they 
have  finished  the  fifth  grade.  Table  No.  i  gives  the  data  for  the 
entire  group.  Three  boys  left  school  while  in  the  first  grade  ;  one 


237 

of  these  boys  was  six  years  old,  one  fifteen,  and  one  sixteen.  Only 
64  boys  left  school  before  completing  the  fifth  grade.  Thirty-eight 
per  cent  left  school  before  finishing  the  seventh  grade  and  61  per 
cent  before  finishing  the  eighth  grade.  The  present  child-labor  law 
in  Iowa  requires  that  children  must  be  fourteen  years  of  age  before 
they  may  legally  quit  school.  According  to  this  table  103  of  the 
826  boys  studied  were  under  fourteen.  However,  the  reader  should 

TABLE  NO.  I.    THE  AGE  AT  WHICH  THE  BOYS  LEFT  SCHOOL 


LEAVING 

GRADE  LEFT 

HIGH  SCHOOL        TOTALS 

1st       2d       3d 

4th 

5th 

6th 

7th 

8th 

1st 

2d 

3d        4th 

6              i                                                                                                              i 

7 

I 

I 

8 

9 

I 

I 

IO                                             I 

I 

3 

5 

ii                               i 

I 

i 

I 

I 

I 

6 

12 

I 

2 

9 

3 

2 

17 

!3 

5 

6 

20 

18 

21 

I 

7i 

H 

8 

M 

37 

45 

76 

15 

3 

198 

15          I 

3 

7 

33 

40 

68 

35 

20 

4                211 

16              i 

i 

2 

15 

17 

59 

26 

23 

"                155 

17 

I 

6 

9 

36 

17 

ii 

ii         9      100 

18 

I 

3 

1  1 

5 

8 

10       10        48 

i9 

i 

i 

i 

2 

2         3        10 

20 

i 

i 

21 

22 

I 

i 

Totals    3              2 

22 

37 

121 

136 

276 

IOO 

69 

38          22         826 

remember  that  the  majority  of  the  boys  had,  at  the  time  of  the 
investigation,  been  out  of  school  more  than  three  years,  and  the 
child-labor  law  was  not  so  well  enforced  three  years  ago  as  at 
the  present  time.  Furthermore,  upon  checking  the  records  of  these 
boys  we  find  that  nearly  90  per  cent  of  the  violations  of  the  age- 
requirement  are  made  by  boys  coming  to  the  two  cities  studied 
from  other  cities  in  the  state  and  from  other  states  in  the  Union. 
These  boys  leave  schools  located  in  small  towns  and  migrate  to 
large  cities  where  they  carry  on  a  more  or  less  precarious  existence, 
avoiding  further  school  attendance. 


238  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

It  is  apparent  from  these  figures  that  workers  in  juvenile  occu- 
pations come  largely  from,  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  grades 
of  the  public  schools.  It  is  also  evident  that  most  of  them  leave 
school  at  about  the  time  when  they  are  fourteen,  fifteen,  or  sixteen 
years  of  age. 

THE  VARIOUS  REASONS  THE  BOYS  STATE  FOR  LEAVING 

SCHOOL 

To  determine  exactly  the  reason  or  reasons  why  a  boy  leaves 
school  is  very  difficult.  Some  argue  that  boys  leave  school  because 
they  have  to  work  and  earn,  while  others  argue  that  they  are  dis- 
satisfied with  the  kind  of  schooling  that  is  offered  them.  In  inter- 
viewing the  boys  an  attempt  was  made  to  find  out  the  reasons  that 
they  give  for  leaving  school. 

Case  No.  457  said :  "  I  came  here  from  England  at  the  age  of 
eleven.  I  started  in  school  in  Des  Moines,  where  they  put  me  in 
the  fourth  grade.  I  found  the  work  in  the  fourth  grade  too  easy 
and  asked  to  be  promoted,  but  they  refused  to  promote  me,  and 
so  I  left  school  and  went  to  work." 

Case  No.  165  gives  quite  another  reason.  He  says  :  "  I  com- 
pleted the  eighth  grade  in  the  country  school  where  my  folks  lived. 
There  was  no  high  school  within  twelve  miles.  If  there  had  been, 
I  am  sure  I  would  have  gone  to  school.  I  went  to  work  for  my 
father  in  a  freight  depot  and  have  been  working  ever  since." 

Case  No.  570  related  as  his  experience  the  following :  "I  did 
not  like  school  as  I  wanted  to  do  tool  work  or  follow  some  com- 
mercial line.  And  as  soon  as  I  became  fourteen  years  of  age  I 
quit  and  took  a  three  months'  course  in  a  business  college.  I  was 
in  the  sixth  grade  when  I  left  school,  but  that  did  not  seem  to 
make  any  difference  to  the  business  college." 

Case  No.  782  suffered  from  stuttering  and  said:  "I  felt  neg- 
lected and  very  frequently  ashamed,  as  the  children  laughed  at 
me.  However,  I  could  .have  continued  in  school,  and  probably 
would  have,  if  an  attractive  position  as  a  clerk  had  not  been 
offered  me  at  the  time." 

The  above  reasons  for  leaving  school  are  somewhat  exceptional, 
but  they  show  something  of  the  variety  of  motives  actuating  boys 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  239 

at  the  time  of  leaving  school.    A  tabulation  of  all  the  reasons 
includes  the  following : 

/.  Necessity 

"  Had  to  work  "        1 28 

"  Sickness  or  death  of  parents  " 40 

11  Earnings  necessary  to  family  support " 43 

"  Self-support  necessary  " 33 

"  Help  needed  at  home  " 1 6 

"  To  earn  money  for  education  of  self  or  relative  "      .     .  i 

"  Father  insisted  that  he  quit " i 

//.  Child  dissatisfied  with  school 

"  Tired  of  school " 81 

"  Disliked  school  life  " 104 

"  Disliked  teacher  " 26 

"  Disliked  study  or  some  particular  subject "       ....  15 

"  School  work  too  hard ;  could  not  learn  " 20 

"  Not  promoted ;  failed  " 17 

"  Expelled  or  had  trouble  " 20 

"  Too  big  for  class  " 2 

"  Had  enough  school  " 8 

"  Irregular  attendance  " 3 

III.  Preference  for  work 

"  Preferred  work  to  school  " 116 

"  Wanted  spending  money  " 29 

"  Wanted  to  earn  money  " 9 

IV.  Other  causes 

"  Wanted  to  learn  trade  or  business  " 23 

"  Moved  away  or  came  to  America  " 26 

"  Wanted  to  travel " 6 

"  Had  completed  school  course ;  no  other  school  near  "  .  5 

"  Ran  away  from  home  " 4 

"  111  health  " 24 

"  Wanted  to  go  to  business  college  " 3 

"  Trouble  in  the  family  " 9 

"  Father  thought  I  was  too  old  " 2 

"  Liked  tool  work  " 2 

"  No  particular  reason  ;  just  left " I 

The  thirty-odd  reasons  given  in  the  preceding  list  are  reducible 
to  three  : 

i.  Either  the  earnings  of  the  boys  are  necessary,  or  their  help 
is  desired  to  support  the  family.  This  probably  accounts  for  one 
third  of  the  withdrawals. 


240  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

2.  The  second  large  factor  is  the  boys'  dissatisfaction  with  school. 
When  they  reach  the  age  of  fourteen  many  of  them  seem  to  be 
in  an  indifferent  frame  of  mind  toward  further  schooling.    The 
routine  of  the  schoolroom  is  too  coercive  to  their  growing  sense 
of  independence.  They  think  they  ought  to  be  allowed  to  do  about 
as  they  desire,  and  too  frequently  their  parents  agree  with  them. 
No  general  theory  fits  every  case,  and  probably  no  child  leaves 
school  for  any  one  reason ;  his  reason  for  leaving  is  a  complex 
of  causes,  no  one  of  which  is  in  itself  sufficient  to  explain  his 
withdrawal.   If%ve  could  go  behind  these  figures,  ive  would  probably 
find  that  the  chief  reason  for  dropping  out  of  school  can  be  traced 
directly  to  a  lack  of  parental  control  and  interest.    Many  parents 
seem  to  be  in  an  indifferent  frame  of  mind  about  their  children  s 
schooling  after  the  children  have  reached  the  legal  age.   Frequently 
parents  of  foreign  children  sacrifice  the  future  education  of  the 
children  to  the  immediate  wants  of  the  family.    A  feeling  is  com- 
mon among  such  parents  that  the  child  should  be  put  to  work  at 
the  earliest  possible  moment  and  his  earnings  be  turned  into  the 
family  income.    They  are  disposed  to  cut  short  the  child's  school 
days  for  entirely  insufficient  causes. 

3.  The  third  general  cause  for  boys'  leaving  school  is  not  so 
much  necessity  or  dissatisfaction  as  it  is  their  preference  for  work. 
They  want  spending  money,  or,  more  serious  still,  they  want  to 
do  something  "  worth  while  "  ;  something  big  physically  or  mate- 
rially that  appeals  to  their  growing  sense  of  power.    Furthermore 
they  do  not  think  that  schooling  is  of  financial  value  to  them. 
They  look  upon  it  as  a  lazy  boy's  occupation.    Case  No.  537  said  : 
"  Schooling  does  not  help  a  fellow  make  money.    I  have  to  make 
my  own  living  and  I  cannot  afford  to  go  to  school."    In  Case 
No.  461  the  father  told  the  boy:  "There  is  no  money  in  going 
to  school.    You  had  better  get  to  work."    About  20  per  cent  of 
the  boys  left  for  some  one  of  these  reasons. 

In  a  few  cases  the  family  moves  or  the  boy  is  sick  for  a  few 
days,  or  he  desires  to  travel.  Occasionally  there  is  trouble  in  the 
family,  as  in  the  case  of  one  boy  whose  stepfather  continually 
punished  him  for  insufficient  reasons.  A  few  of  the  boys  do  not 
like  the  social  life  of  the  high  school,  especially  children  from  the 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  241 

poor  and  foreign  classes.  One  boy  said,  "The  high  school  is  for 
the  rich  people  and  not  for  poor  boys."  Apparently  these  social 
factors  do  not  account  for  many  of  the  withdrawals. 

HOW  LONG  ARE  THE  BOYS  IDLE   IMMEDIATELY  AFTER 
LEAVING  SCHOOL 

A  few  of  the  boys  after  leaving  school  remain  idle  for  some 
time  before  going  to  work.  In  order  to  find  out  just  how  much 
time  is  wasted  in  this  way,  the  investigators  were  instructed  to  ask 
each  boy  to  state  the  length  of  time  he  was  idle  between  leaving 
school  and  securing  his  first  job.  Of  the  boys  who  gave  satisfac- 
tory answers  to  the  questions  634  said  they  went  to  work  immedi- 
ately ;  115  were  idle  less  than  one  month  ;  2  5  from  one  to  two 
months;  n  from  two  to  three  months;  10  from  three  to  four 
months ;  4  from  four  to  five  months  ;  8  from  five  to  six  months  ; 
14  from  six  months  to  one  year;  6  between  one  and  one  and  a 
half  years ;  and  2  for  two  years  and  over. 

From  these  figures  it  will  be  seen  that  about  75  per  cent  of  the 
boys  went  to  work  immediately.  Of  the  remaining  25  per  cent 
over  half  of  them  were  idle  less  than  one  month.  One  reason  why 
children  are  idle  so  little  between  leaving  school  and  taking  their 
first  job  is  probably  that  they  have  the  job  before  they  leave  school, 
and  that  induces  them  to  quit.  If  the  boy  is  fourteen  years  of  age, 
has  little  spending  money,  and  no  one  at  home  to  insist  upon  his 
going  to  school,  it  is  pretty  hard  for  him  to  resist  a  lucrative  blind- 
alley  job. 

HOW  THE  BOYS   FIND  THEIR  JOBS 

Another  of  the  questions  asked  each  boy  was,  "  How  did  you 
find  your  job  ? "  An  answer  was  secured  for  each  job  they  had 
had  since  leaving  school.  The  purpose  of  the  question  was  to  dis- 
cover how  much  assistance  they  received  in  finding  positions,  and 
from  what  sources.  The  usual  method  of  "  selling  "  one's  labor 
is  to  hawk  it  from  door  to  door.  A  common  method  of  securing 
employees  is  to  put  out  a  sign  that  hawkers  may  apply  for  work. 
Usually  in  this  country  the  burden  of  finding  employment  falls 
upon  the  individual.  The  cities  and  states  of  America  do  not  have 


242  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

well-organized  systems  of  employment  bureaus  for  the  purpose  of 
adjusting  either  juvenile  or  adult  laborer  to  employer.  The  boys 
as  they  leave  school  to  go  to  work  are  for  the  most  part  thrown 
upon  their  own  resources,  as  is  shown  by  the  results  of  this  inves- 
tigation. More  than  85  per  cent  of  the  jobs  were  found  by  the 
boys'  hawking  for  them.  The  remaining  jobs  were  found  in  the 

following  way : 

92  by  answering  an  advertisement 
57  through  assistance  of  parents 
55  through  assistance  of  friends 
i  through  teacher  in  public  school 
i  by  being  asked  by  an  employer 

Apparently  the  teacher  does  not  attempt  to  assist  these  boys 
in  securing  work.  Nor  are  their  friends,  relatives,  and  parents 
of  very  great  assistance.  The  majority  of  the  boys  find  work  for 
themselves.  It  seemed  not  to  be  considered  the  business  of  any 
social  agency  other  than  the  public  school  accurately  to  inform 
such  boys  concerning  the  occupations  open  to  them.  No  literature 
is  handed  them  concerning  desirable  vocations,  and  apparently  no 
advice  is  offered  them  regarding  unskilled,  semiskilled,  or  highly 
skilled  employments.  They  are  not  told  about  the  "  blind-alley  " 
jobs.  No  one  looks  after  them  systematically,  following  them  from 
the  door  of  the  schoolroom  into  the  jobs  which  necessity  or  choice 
causes  them  to  accept.  They  find  their  own  jobs  and  take  the  jobs 
that  they  can  find  quickly.  These  boys  studied  are  therefore  fair 
examples  of  what  happens  in  the  absence  of  vocational  guidance. 
What  might  have  happened  if  careful  vocational  guidance  and 
supervision  had  been  provided  can  only  be  inferred.  It  is  safe  to 
guess  that  the  percentage  of  those  entering  and  remaining  in  un- 
skilled and  low-grade  skilled  occupations  would  have  been  greatly 
decreased,  and  also  that  the  "fetching  and  carrying"  occupations 
—  in  which  the  chief  duty  is  to  wait  upon  the  casual  needs  of 
others — would  have  been  avoided  to  a  much  greater  degree.  Some- 
one might  study  an  equal  number  of  children  leaving  schools  of 
a  city  where  vocational  guidance  is  provided  and  contrast  the  two 
groups.  Such  a  contrast  would  measure,  to  some  degree  at  least, 
the  kind  and  value  of  the  guidance  offered.  It  would  then  be 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  243 

possible  to  know  how  much  a  city  could  afford  to  spend  in  insti- 
tuting such  guidance.  At  present  we  have  a  feeling  that  guidance 
is  valuable,  but  are  unable  to  say  to  what  degree. 

NUMBER  OF  BOYS  WHO  HAVE  COMPLETED  ONE  OR  MORE 
JOBS  SINCE  LEAVING  SCHOOL 

A  careful  study  was  made  of  the  number  of  boys  who  had  con- 
cluded one  or  more  jobs  since  leaving  school.  A  job  was  considered 
"  concluded  "  if  the  boy  had  entered  and  left  it.  A  typical  working 
record  of  one  or  two  of  the  boys  may  be  of  interest  at  this  point. 

Case  No.  5 1  was  last  in  the  eighth  grade,  and  was  fifteen  years 
old  at  the  time  he  left  school.  He  started  to  work  in  a  brickyard 
at  $6  a  week,  and  at  the  end  of  one  year  was  getting  $9  a  week. 
He  left  the  job  because  he  thought  it  was  "  too  hard."  Within 
one  week  he  found  work  in  a  hosiery  mill,  where  he  stayed  for 
two  years,  starting  at  $4  a  week  and  receiving  at  the  end  of  two 
years  $12  a  week.  He  gave  as  his  reason  for  leaving  the  job, 
"tired  of  it."  He  then  secured  work  on  the  fair  grounds  for 
four  months  at  $10  a  week,  but  the  job  "came  to  an  end"  and 
he  went  to  work  as  a  helper  in  a  tin  shop,  where  he  remained  for 
five  months,  getting  $7  a  week.  He  left  it  "to  learn  a  trade,"  and 
started  in  assisting  a  brick  mason  at  $6  a  week.  At  the  end  of 
the  year  he  was  getting  $14  a  week,  but  was  unhappy  and  left 
it  "  for  no  very  good  reason ;  just  because  he  wanted  a  change," 
and  went  back  to  work  on  the  fair  grounds  for  $7  a  week  and 
board.  At  the  time  of  the  investigation  he  was  a  tender  to  a  brick 
mason  at  $12  a  week,  and  said  he  desired  to  become  a  brick  mason. 
He  is  now  twenty  years  old,  and  has  had  in  all  seven  different 
jobs  in  five  years. 

A  study  of  all  the  cases  gives  the  following  results  : 

228  boys  had  concluded  i  job  since  leaving  school 

214  boys  had  concluded  2  jobs  since  leaving  school 

169  boys  had  concluded  3  jobs  since  leaving  school 

94  boys  had  concluded  4  jobs  since  leaving  school 

58  boys  had  concluded  5  jobs  since  leaving  school 

31  boys  had  concluded  6  jobs  since  leaving  school 

19  boys  had  concluded  7  jobs  since  leaving  school 


244  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

1 1  boys  had  concluded  8  jobs  since  leaving  school 
13  boys  had  concluded  9  jobs  since  leaving  school 

Two  boys  had  concluded  as  many  as  12  jobs  each.  These  boys 
belonged  to  that  shiftless  class  that  is  continually  moving  from 
place  to  place  and  job  to  job  in  search  of  excitement.  The  average 
boy  passes  through  J  jobs  in  t^vo  years.  Such  figures  emphasize 
the  instability  of  juvenile  occupations.  The  boys  do  not  remain  in 
one  occupation  for  a  very  long  period  of  time.  The  work  that  they 
are  in  is  unsatisfactory  and  does  not  succeed  in  holding  them. 

LENGTH   OF  TIME  THE  BOYS   SPENT  IN  THE  JOBS 

A  few  of  the  boys  had  spent  over  three  years  on  a  job.  No  job 
is  included  in  these  figures  which  was  not  concluded  at  the  time 
of  the  investigation.  A  complete  analysis  is  shown  as  follows  : 

In  1 7  jobs  the  boys  spent  less  than  i  month 
In  37  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  i  and  2  months 
In  105  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  2  and  3  months 
In  138  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  3  and  4  months 
In  133  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  4  and  5  months 
In  1 02  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  5  and  6  months 
In  147  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  6  and  7  months 
In  90  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  7  and  8  months 
In  69  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  8  and  9  months 
In  85  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  9  and  10  months 
In  69  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  10  and  1 1  months 
In  25  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  1 1  and  12  months 
In  222  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  i  and  i^  years 
In  1 10  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  i£  and  2  years 
.  In  68  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  2  and  2J  years 
In  25  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  2^  and  3  years 
In  27  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  3  and  3^  years 
In  3  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  3^  and  4  years 
In  30  jobs  the  boys  spent  between  4  years  and  over 

Of  the  total  number  investigated,  218  had  not  concluded  their 
first  job  at  the  time  of  the  investigation  and  therefore  are  not 
included  in  the  above  figures.  The  average  length  of  the  time 
for  a  job  is  shown  to  be  less  than  over  a  year.  The  boys  seem 
to  shift  a  great  deal.  Some  of  the  reasons  for  changes  are  given 
in  the  following  section. 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  245 

REASONS  THE  BOYS  GIVE  FOR  CHANGING  JOBS 

It  is  impossible  to  state  the  exact  number  of  boys  leaving  jobs 
for  any  particular  reason.  Some  of  them  "wanted  better  pay,"  or 
"  to  find  a  better  job."  Others  "  did  not  like  the  work  they  were 
in  and  wanted  a  change."  Another  boy  said  he  "wanted  inside 
work."  About  20  per  cent  of  them  "lost  their  jobs";  15  per 
cent  found  their  jobs  "  too  hard  " ;  a  few,  perhaps  7  per  cent, 
were  forced  to  leave  the  work  they  were  in  because  "  the  business 
failed."  One  boy  was  working  at  night  and  left  it  because  he 
"  wanted  day  work."  Another  boy  who  was  working  on  a  punching 
press  in  a  machine  shop  was  injured  slightly  and,  after  recovering, 
did  not  go  back. 

Reasons  that  are  given  many  times  are  :  "  laid  off,"  "  was  let 
out,"  "found  the  work  too  hard,"  "got  fired,"  "had  trouble," 
"did  not  like  it,"  "moved  away,"  or  "came  to  America." 

Reasons  that  occur  rarely  are  :  "  little  chance  for  improvement," 
"no  future,"  "wanted  to  learn  a  trade,"  "was  advanced  or  pro- 
moted," "left  the  work  because  it  wasn't  steady." 

The  one  striking  note  through  all  these  reasons  is  the  desire 
on  the  part  of  the  boys  for  better  wages.  TJiey  seem  to  think  more 
of  an  increase  in  salary  than  they  do  of  an  advancement  in  skill. 
For  this  they  are  not  entirely  to  blame,  as  they  receive  little  or 
no  advice  to  the  contrary.  In  their  minds  the  boy  who  is  getting 
the  best  wages  is  the  most  successful  boy.  Their  idea  of  success 
is  expressed  in  financial  terms.  In  a  later  section  more  definite 
evidence  is  given  for  this  conclusion. 

THE  BEGINNING  WAGES  OF  THE  BOYS 

One  of  the  most  interesting  parts  of  the  study  pertains  to  the 
wages  received  by  the  boys  when  they  begin  work.  The  facts 
are  as  follows  : 

4  boys  received  nothing  a  week 

7  boys  received  $i  a  week 

22  boys  received  $2  a  week 

87  boys  received  $3  a  week 

1 28  boys  received  $4  a  week 


246  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

1 24  boys  received  $5  a  week 
1 1 1  boys  received  $6  a  week 

94  boys  received  $73  week 

64  boys  received  $8  a  week 

47  boys  received  $9  a  week 

54  boys  received  $10  a  week 
6  boys  received  $  1 1  a  week 

40  boys  received  $12  a  week 

4  boys  received  $133  week 

6  boys  received  $143  week 
22  boys  received  $  i  5  a  week 

5  boys  received  $  1 6  a  week 
2  boys  received  $173  week 

7  boys  received  $  1 8  a  week 
2  boys  received  $19  a  week 
i  boy  received  $20  a  week 

The  range  is  from  nothing  to  $20  a  week.  The  average  is  about 
$5.50  a  week.  There  are  as  many  who  received  $5-5°  or  ^ess  a 
week  as  there  are  boys  who  receive  more  than  $5.50  a  week.  If 
we  leave  out  of  consideration  the  first  and  last  25  per  cent  of  the 
boys,  we  find  that  the  middle  50  per  cent  received  a  weekly  wage 
of  from  $4.50  to  $7. 

The  boys  working  in  coal  mines  are  of  special  interest.  This 
includes  37  boys.  Their  average  age  on  beginning  work  was  found 
to  be  fourteen  years  and  six  months.  Their  beginning  wages  were 
$12  a  week.  However,  some  of  the  boys  received  as  low  as  $6, 
and  others  as  high  as  $20  a  week.  One  boy  worked  for  three  weeks 
in  this  occupation,  while  another  stayed  in  it  for  eleven  years.  The 
reasons  the  boys  give  for  leaving  coal  mining  are  interesting. 
Four  "  got  hurt  "  ;  in  the  case  of  three  the  "  parents  objected  "  ; 
four  said  they  "  did  n't  like  it  "  ;  one  "  got  fired  "  ;  three  "  wanted 
to  learn  a  trade." 

The  Mine  Workers'  Union  has  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the 
elimination  of  boys  from  mining  occupations.  Practically  no  boys 
under  sixteen  are  now  used  to  drive  mules.  The  number  of  trapper 
boys  has  been  greatly  reduced  by  many  of  the  miners'  adopting 
overhead  systems  of  ventilation  that  make  trapdoors  unnecessary. 
The  fact  that  the  mine  operators  must  assume  all  risk  for  boys 
under  sixteen  has  also  tended  toward  their  elimination. 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  247 

CORRELATIONS  BETWEEN  LEAVING  GRADE  AND 
BEGINNING  WAGE 

The  question  is  sometimes  asked,  Do  the  boys  who  leave  an 
advanced  grade  receive  a  higher  beginning  wage  than  those  who 
leave  a  lower  grade  of  the  public  school  ?  This  question  is  an- 
swered by  the  figures  in  Table  No.  II.  The  wages  and  grade 
were  known  for  812  cases. 

TABLE  NO.  II.    CORRELATION  BETWEEN  LEAVING  GRADE  AND 
BEGINNING  WAGE 


AVERAGE 

GRADE 

HIGH  SCHOOL         TOTAL 

1st    2d    3d 

4th 

5th 

6th 

7th 

8th 

1st 

2d 

3d       4th 

$1.00  and  under 

I 

4 

I 

6 

$1.01  to  $2.00                      i 

I 

I 

5 

I 

4 

4 

I 

18 

$2.01  to  $3.00 

4 

6 

14 

15 

26 

6 

4 

2 

77 

$3.01  to  $4.00           i 

4 

10 

3° 

19 

36 

13 

6 

2 

121 

$4.01  to  $5.00 

2 

3 

17 

25 

45 

1  1 

9 

5        i 

118 

$5.01  to  $6.00           i 

I 

3 

18 

19 

37 

15 

ii 

2       3 

I  10 

$6.0  1  to  $7.00                        i 

3 

6 

6 

24 

3° 

8 

8 

6 

92 

$7.01  to  $8.00           i 

2 

i 

8 

8 

18 

10 

6 

i        7 

62 

$8.01  to  $9.00 

4 

8 

'9 

10 

2 

4       2 

49 

$9.01  to  $10.00 

2 

7 

i 

27 

1  1 

6 

5        i 

60 

$10.01  to  $11.00 

I 

I 

2 

i 

i 

6 

$11.01  to  $12.00 

I 

I 

I 

5 

'7 

5 

7 

3       2 

42 

$I2.OI    tO  $13.00 

I 

4 

5 

$13.01  to  $14.00 

I 

I 

2 

i 

5 

$14.01  to  $15.00                   i 

I 

I 

3 

i 

7 

2 

2 

2            I 

21 

$15.01  to  $16.00 

I 

i 

I 

2 

I 

6 

$l6.OI   tO  $I7.OO                                                                                                 2                                                                    2 

$17.01  to  $18.00 

I 

2 

3 

I 

7 

$18.01  to  $19.00 

i 

i 

2 

$19.01  to  $20.00 

i 

I 

I 

3 

Totals               3           3 

23 

37 

118 

131 

275 

98 

73 

33      '8 

812 

Not  enough  boys  left  grades  below  the  fifth  to  make  our  figures 
worth  while.  The  average  (median)  wages  of  the  boys  leaving 
each  grade  above  the  fourth  were  as  follows : 

$4.25  a  week  for  those  leaving  the  5th  grade 
$4.50  a  week  for  those  leaving  the  6th  grade 
$5.20  a  week  for  those  leaving  the  7th  grade 


248  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

$5.60  a  week  for  those  leaving  the  8th  grade 
$6.00  a  week  for  those  leaving  the  ist  year  high  school 
$6.60  a  week  for  those  leaving  the  2d  year  high  school 
$7.60  a  week  for  those  leaving  the  3d  year  high  school 
$7.50  a  week  for  those  leaving  the  4th  year  high  school 

If  one  argues  that  schooling  alone  is  the  reason  for  any  increase 
in  wage,  he  may  conclude  on  the  basis  of  these  figures  that  the 
average  boy  leaving  the  junior  or  senior  year  of  high  school  gets 
about  $  i  more  a  week  than  the  average  boy  leaving  the  freshman 
or  sophomore  year,  and  that  the  average  boy  leaving  the  fresh- 
man or  sophomore  year  gets  about  $  i  more  than  the  boy  leaving 
the  sixth,  seventh,  or  eighth  grade.  This  assumption  is  probably 
wrong.  We  cannot  be  sure  that  the  increase  in  amount  of  schooling 
is  the  real  reason  for  the  increase  in  wage.  Age  probably  is  a 
much  more  important  factor  than  grade  in  determining  the  begin- 
ning wage.  In  fact,  by  comparing  the  beginning  wage  of  seven- 
teen-year-old boys  who  leave  one  grade  with  seventeen-year-old 
boys  who  leave  another  grade  we  find  a  very  slight  increase. 

All  of  the  boys  who  were  seventeen  years  old  when  they  left 
school  were  studied  to  see  if  those  who  left  advanced  grades  re- 
ceived higher  wages  than  those  who  left  lower  grades.  The  average 
wage  for  each  group  of  seventeen-year-old  boys  was  as  follows : 

4  boys  leaving  the  6th  grade  averaged  $6 

9  boys  leaving  the  7th  grade  averaged  $6 
38  boys  leaving  the  8th  grade  averaged  $8 
14  boys  leaving  the  gth  grade  averaged  $8 

13  boys  leaving  the  loth  grade  averaged  $7 

14  boys  leaving  the  I  ith  grade  averaged  $6.50 
4  boys  leaving  the  1 2th  grade  averaged  $7 

Boys  of  the  same  age  leaving  different  grades  get  about  the 
same  beginning  wages. 

CORRELATION  BETWEEN  LEAVING  AGE  AND 
BEGINNING  WAGE 

The  correlation  between  the  age  at  which  these  boys  left  school 
and  the  average  weekly  wage  which  they  received  when  they  began 
is  set  forth  in  Table  No.  III. 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING 


249 


TABLE  NO.  III.    CORRELATION   BETWEEN   LEAVING  AGE  AND 
BEGINNING  WAGE 


BEGINNING 

WAGE          ,- 

AGES 

TOTAL 

6     7     i 

5     9     10     11      12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18      19     20     21      22 

$1.00  and  under 

i 

i 

3 

I 

6 

$1.01  to  $2.00 

i       i 

2 

ii 

2 

i 

18 

$2.01  to  $3.00          i 

2                    2 

20 

15 

17 

II 

5 

2          I 

76 

$3.01  to  $4.00     i 

I          I         3 

12 

5° 

30 

14 

7 

I 

I2O 

$4.01  to  $5.00 

I                    2 

12 

29 

42 

22 

5 

5 

IlS 

$5.OI  tO  $6.OO 

I 

5 

26 

36 

26 

13 

4 

III 

£6.01  to  #7.00 

112 

7 

25 

22 

'9 

9 

7 

93 

$7.01  to  #8.00 

I                     I 

3 

8 

17 

15 

9 

5      2      i 

62 

JS.oi  to  $9.00 

4 

3 

7 

12 

6 

13 

3      i 

49 

$9.01  to  $10.00 

I 

2 

8 

9 

21 

9 

8         2 

60 

$10.01  to  $11.00 

I 

2 

I 

I 

I 

6 

$11.01  to  $12.00 

4 

8 

14 

9 

6 

4i 

$12.01  to  $13.00 

i 

4 

2 

7 

$13.01  to  $14.00 

2 

i 

I 

I 

5 

$14.01  to  $15.00 

I 

I 

3 

4 

3 

8 

I                                        I 

22 

$15.01  to  $16.00 

i 

2 

2 

5 

$16.01  to  $17.00 

I 

I 

2 

$17.01  to  $18.00 

I 

i 

I 

I 

i 

I         I 

7 

$18.01  to  $19.00 

I 

I 

2 

$19.01  to  $20.00 

3 

3 

Totals          i     i 

6      4     18 

7» 

192 

211 

'57 

93 

49       7      2              i 

813 

Table  No.  Ill  should  be  read  as  follows  : 

One  six-year-old  boy  received  from  $3  to  $4 

One  seven-year-old  boy  received  from  $2  to  $3,  etc. 

Very  few  boys  went  to  work  before  they  were  fourteen  years 
of  age,  and  very  few  received  less  than  $2  a  week.  In  fact  there 
are  so  few  cases  of  boys  under  twelve  years  of  age  that  compari- 
sons are  hardly  reliable.  The  same  is  true  of  boys  more  than  nine- 
teen years  of  age.  But  between  the  ages  of  twelve  and  eighteen 
sufficient  cases  are  available  to  justify  comparison. 

The  correlations  between  leaving  ages  and  beginning  wages 
are  as  follows  : 

$4.10  a  week  for  boys  13  years  of  age 

$4.90  a  week  for  boys  1 4  years  of  age 

$4.30  a  week  for  boys  1 5  years  of  age 

$5.25  a  week  for  boys  16  years  of  age 

$7.60  a  week  for  boys  i  7  years  of  age 

$8.80  a  week  for  boys  18  years  of  age 


250  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

According  to  these  figures  the  older  the  boy  when  he  begins 
work  the  higher  his  wage.  Between  boys  thirteen,  fourteen,  and 
fifteen  years  of  age  there  is  little  difference.  But  after  the  fifteenth 
year  there  is  a  remarkable  increase ;  $  i  a  week  from  fifteen  to 
sixteen,  nearly  $1.50  from  sixteen  to  seventeen,  and  more  than 
$i  from  seventeen  to  eighteen. 

The  amount  of  wages  received  by  boys  thirteen,  fourteen,  and 
fifteen  years  of  age  would  hardly  justify  their  withdrawal  from 
school.  The  report  of  the  United  States  government  claims  that 
at  least  $2  a  week  is  necessary  for  the  self-maintenance  of  a  person 
more  than  ten  years  of  age.  Using  this  figure  as  a  minimum  stand- 
ard, it  will  be  seen  that  the  thirteen-year-old  boys  are  making  about 
twice  as  much  as  is  absolutely  necessary  for  existence.  However, 
the  figures  in  the  government  report  are  considered  by  many  econo- 
mists as  very  low.  It  would  certainly  be  difficult  for  a  Des  Moines 
or  Sioux  City  boy  to  live  and  save  if  receiving  the  minimum  weekly 
wage  above  indicated. 

CORRELATION  BETWEEN  WAGES  AND  YEARS  OF 
EXPERIENCE 

Additional  data  upon  the  question  raised  in  the  preceding 
section  are  furnished  by  a  study  of  the  relationship  that  exists 
between  the  increase  in  weekly  wages  and  years  of  experience. 
One  would  naturally  expect  a  boy  who  has  been  out  of  school 
three  years  to  get  a  higher  wage  than  a  boy  who  has  been  out  of 
school  one  year,  a  boy  who  has  been  out  of  school  five  years  a 
higher  wage  than  a  boy  who  has  been  out  of  school  two  years. 
Just  how  much  experience  counts  is,  however,  a  much  more  diffi- 
cult question  to  answer.  In  Table  No.  IV  the  figures  across  the 
top  refer  to  years  of  experience,  such  as  one  year,  two  years, 
three  years,  four  years,  etc.  By  "years  of  experience"  is  meant 
that  the  boy  had  been  out  of  school  and  at  work  at  least  one 
year,  two  years,  three  years,  etc.  The  figures  down  the  left-hand 
side  of  the  page  refer  to  the  average  weekly  wages  received  dur- 
ing the  year.  For  example,  5  boys  had  been  out  of  school  one 
year  and  had  received  an  average  weekly  wage  of  from  $1.01 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING 


251 


to  $2  a  week ;  1 1  boys  had  been  out  of  school  one  year  and  had 
received  an  average  wage  of  from  $2  to  $3  a  week,  etc.,  for  the 
remainder  of  the  table. 


TABLE  NO.  IV.    CORRELATION  BETWEEN  WAGES  AND  YEARS 
OF  EXPERIENCE 


AVERAGE 
WEEKLY  WAGES 

YEARS  OF  EXPERIENCE 

TOTALS 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6       7       8       9       10      11 

12     13      14      15 

$1.00  and  under 

$1.01  to  $2.00 

5 

z 

I 

8 

$2.01  to  $3.00 

n 

7 

2 

I                                          21 

$3.01  to  $4.00 

37 

13 

2 

2 

2 

I        I 

58 

$4.01  to  $5.00 

36 

23 

1 

3 

I 

i 

65 

$5.01  to  $6.00 

26 

19 

1  6 

4 

2 

67 

$6.oi  to  $7.00 

16 

3° 

12 

7 

4 

12                      II 

74 

$7.01  to  $8.00 

15 

20 

14 

20 

6 

3       i              2 

81 

$8.01  to  $9.00 

13 

26 

21 

1O 

9 

234                     I 

89 

$9.01  to  $10.00 

7 

5 

(> 

3 

4 

2         2 

—       29 

$10.01  to  $11.00 

8 

16 

18 

16 

M 

>3      3       i       i       i       i 

92 

$n.oi  to  $12.00 

2 

3 

i 

3 

6 

1       3                             i 

I            21 

$12.01  to  $13.00 

2 

4 

5 

4 

5 

4      2              i 

27 

$13.01  to  $14.00 

8 

10 

6 

16 

12 

10      3       3      2       i 

I                                             72 

$14.01  to  $15.00 

2 

3 

i 

4 

I 

212 

16 

$15.01  to  $16.00 

I 

2 

4 

3 

I           I 

12 

$16.01  to  $17.00 

2 

3 

2 

5 

8 

51223 

33 

$17.01  to  $18.00 

I 

i 

i 

I          I 

5 

$18.01  to  $19.00 

2 

3 

2 

3 

3 

421II 

22 

$19.01  to  $20.00 

3 

I 

4 

$20.01  to  $21.00 

I 

1          2 

4 

$21.01   tO  $22.00 

I 

I                                               2 

$22.01  tO  $23.00 

i 

I                                               I 

3 

$23.01  to  $24.00 

i 

2          I 

4 

$24.01  to  $25.00 

I 

i 

$25.01  to  $26.00 

2 

I 

3 

$26.01  to  $27.00 

I 

I 

2 

$27.01  to  $28.00 

$28.01  to  $29.00 

i 

•                                             I 

$29.01  to  $30.00     • 

$30.01  to  $31.00 

$31.01  to  $32.00 

$32.01  to  $33.00 

I 

I 

$33.01  to  $34.00 

$34.01  to  $35.00 

$35.01  to  $36.00 

$36.01  to  $37.00 

I 

I 

Totals 

I94 

188 

"3 

no 

86 

55     3°     15     12      9      2 

3                     i      818 

252  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

From  Table  No.  IV  we  may  draw  the  following  conclusions 
with  regard  to  the  financial  value  of  different  years  of  experience. 
The  weekly  wages  received  are  as  follows  : 

$5.30  a  week  during  the  ist  year  of  experience 
$6.05  a  week  during  the  2d  year  of  experience 
$8.50  a  week  during  the  3d  year  of  experience 
$10.33  a  week  during  the  4th  year  of  experience 
$10.00  a  week  during  the  5th  year  of  experience 
$11 .00  a  week  during  the  6th  year  of  experience 
$11.66  a  week  during  the  7th  year  of  experience 
$14.30  a  week  during  the  8th  year  of  experience 
$14.50  a  week  during  the  9th  year  of  experience 

That  experience  is  the  chief  factor  in  determining  the  wages 
of  these  boys  is  very  evident.  The  boys  with  two  years  of  experi- 
ence received  almost  $  i  more  than  those  with  one  year  experience, 
while  those  with  three  years  of  experience  received  over  $3  more 
per  week.  Those  with  four  years  of  experience  have  doubled  their 
wages.  They  do  not  reach  a  level  until  about  the  eighth  or  ninth 
year  of  experience,  and  are  then  receiving  over  $14  a  week  and 
are  more  than  twenty-one  years  of  age. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  compare  these  figures  with  figures 
on  an  equal  number  of  cases  of  boys  graduating  from  high  school, 
but  such  figures  are  not  at  present  available.  How  much  more 
money  high-school  graduates  in  Iowa  would  receive  at  the  end  of 
six  or  nine  years  of  experience  can  only  be  inferred.  Perhaps 
many  of  the  conclusions  with  regard  to  the  value  of  school  train- 
ing which  in  the  last  few  years  we  have  been  telling  high-school 
and  grammar-school  boys  are  not  as  accurate  as  we  have  thought. 
Before  we  can  present  to  boys  the  actual  facts,  further  careful 
study  must  be  made  along  these  lines. 

AVERAGE.  ANNUAL  INCREASE  IN  WAGES   PER  YEARS 
OF  EXPERIENCE 

In  order  to  find  out  just  how  rapidly  the  boys  increased  in 
wages  over  their  initial  wage  a  study  was  made  of  their  average 
annual  increase.  For  example,  Case  No.  204  had  been  out  of 
school  five  years.  He  received  a  wage  of  $3.50  to  start  with  and 
was  getting  a  wage  of  $10  at  the  time  of  the  investigation,  which 
was  after  five  years  of  experience.  That  is,  he  had  increased  $6.50 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  253 

in  five  years,  which  would  give  him  an  average  annual  increase 
of  $1.30  a  week.  He  would  appear  in  Table  No.  V  under  column 
marked  five  years,  and  opposite  the  left-hand  column  marked  $1.01 
to  $1.50.  The  other  cases  were  studied  in  the  same  way. 

TABLE  NO.  V.    AVERAGE  ANNUAL  INCREASE  IN  WAGES  FOR 
YEARS  OF  EXPERIENCE 


AVERAGE  INCREA. 
IN  WEEKLY 
WAGES 

*R 

NUMBER  OF  YEARS  OF  EXPERIENCE                                  TOTALS 

-1 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6       7       8       9       10      11      12      13      14      15 

No  increase 

13 

29 

16 

4 

4 

6 

I                        i 

74 

Under  50  cents 

2 

5 

ii 

9 

10 

8 

6631 

61 

$0.51  to  $1.00 

4 

38 

12 

22 

17 

9 

93514                ill 

127 

$1.01  to  #1.50 

i 

19 

25 

18 

21 

9 

10      4       i       15 

114 

$1.51  to  $2.00 

5 

23 

28 

18 

12 

ii 

10      4      3      4       i 

119 

#2.01  to  $2.50 

i 

ii 

14 

5 

7 

10 

641 

59 

$2.51  to  $3.00 

i 

18 

II 

7 

7 

2 

3 

49 

#3.01  to  $3.50 

2 

8 

2 

9 

3 

24 

#3-5 

to  $4.00 

3 

5 

3 

6 

4 

3 

2 

26 

$4-o 

to  $4.50 

6 

2 

2 

10 

U-s 

to  $5.00 

i 

6 

I 

i 

I 

10 

#5-° 

to  $6.00 

3 

2 

I 

6 

$6.0 

to  $7.00 

2 

I 

3 

$7.0 

to  $8.00 

5 

5 

|8.o 

to  $9.00 

I 

i 

#9.0 

to  $10.00 

I 

i 

$10.01  to  $11.00 

I 

i 

I 

3 

$11.01  to  $12.00 

i 

i 

Totals         35  172  134    93     81     64    48    21     13      8     ii  i       i       i  683 

From  the  foregoing  table  it  may  be  seen  that  74  cases  had  not 
made  any  annual  increase  in  wages.  The  others  had  increased  in 
wages  from  less  than  50  cents  to  $12  a  week.  The  boys  average 
an  increase  of  a  little  less  than  $2  a  week  for  each  year  out  up 
to  and  including  the  ninth  year.  This  would  seem  to  be  a  fairly 
good  rate  of  progress.  The  cases  from  which  no  data  could  be 
secured  are  not  included  in  this  table. 

THE  DIFFERENT  OCCUPATIONS  IN  WHICH  THE  BOYS 
WERE  ENGAGED 

It  is  very  difficult  to  determine  the  exact  number  of  different 
lines  of  work  in  which  these  boys  were  engaged.  In  fact  there 
is  no  standard  to  follow  in  determining  what  is  and  what  is  not 
an  occupation.  A  boy  may  be  working  at  carpentry  work  in  making 
brooms  in  a  broom  factory,  or  he  may  be  working  at  carpentry 


254  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

work  in  a  cabinetmaker's  shop.  In  the  first  case  he  would  be 
apt  to  call  himself  a  "scraper,"  and  in  the  second  a  carpenter's 
helper.  The  same  thing  occurs  in  many  different  lines  of  work. 
It  becomes  necessary,  therefore,  to  group  the  occupations,  and 
that  has  been  done  in  this  section.  The  occupations  are  then 
studied  with  regard  to  their  popularity  among  boy  workers.  For 
example,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  lists  which  follow,  59  different 
boys  worked  at  one  time  or  another  in  occupations  which  are  listed 
under  the  heading  "  printers."  For  convenience  in  considering 
the  pursuits  that  boys  are  likely  to  get  into,  the  list  has  been 
divided.  In  the  first  list  occur  all  the  occupations  in  which  at  least 
10  of  the  boys  had  at  some  time  worked.  In  the  second  list,  all 
occupations  in  which  less  than  10  boys  at  any  time  worked. 

THE  THIRTY-THREE  MOST  POPULAR  PURSUITS  AMONG 
IOWA  BOYS 

Helpers  and  general  workers 376 

Drivers  (delivery,  transfer,  teamsters,  etc.) 256 

Clerks  (shipping,  stock,  sales,  etc.) 233 

Errand  and  messenger  boys 1 57 

Farm  hands  (gardeners,  dairymen,  etc.) 130 

Wrappers  and  packers 79 

Apprentices  (all  occupations) 69 

Printers  (pressman,  type  and  linotype,  etc.) 59 

Office  boys 57 

Bill  posters  and  peddlers 49 

Porters,  pages,  hall  and  bell  boys 48 

Hosiery-mill  operatives 39 

R.R.  hands  (brakeman,  section,  freight,  etc.) 25 

Elevator  boys 22 

Cement  workers  (mixers,  feeders,  carriers,  etc.) 22 

Electrical  workers  (wiring,  lineman,  switchboard,  etc.)       ....  21 

Water  boys 21 

Bookkeepers,  stenographers,  and  timekeepers 21 

Drafters  and  engravers 20 

Machinists 20 

Waiters 20 

Agents  and  collectors 18 

Tailors 18 

Cutters  (glass,  shoe,  paper,  etc.) 15 

Soda-fountain  boys 15 

Painters  and  decorators 14 

Cigar  makers 14 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING 


255 


Labelers  and  letter  addressers !  I 

Pressers  (clothes) i , 

Bootblacks n 

Checkers,  sorters,  and  ticket  takers u 

Miners u 

Cash  boys 10 

THE  SEVENTY-EIGHT  OCCUPATIONS  NOT  SO  POPULAR 

Butchers 9       Icemen 2 

Factory  workers  (n.o.s.) 9       Actors 2 

Foremen  and  managers 9       Cashiers 2 

Telegraphers 8  Brick-  and  ti'e-dressers    ....     2 

Musicians  (playing,  singing,  tuning)  .  8       Blacksmiths 2 

Sign  painters,  stencilers,  and  markers  8       Bookbinders 2 

Chauffeurs 8       Wipers ,     .     2 

Box-factory  workers 7       Furriers 2 

Bottle  washers 7       Fruit  pickers 2 

Tinners 6       Pattern  makers 2 

Molders 6       Boiler  makers 2 

Firemen  (fire  department  and  engine)  6       Barbers 2 

Pin  setter  and  ball  racker     ....  6       Floorwalker 

Candy  makers  and  mixers     ....  5  Picture  framer    ...... 

Polishers 5       Syrup  maker 

Upholsterers 5       Shearer 

Journeymen 5       Corn  husker 

Optical  workers  (mounting  and  grind-  Paperer 

ing) 4       Oiler , 

Janitors 4       Boatman 

Cooks 4       Coal  shoveler 

Horsetraders  and  hostlers     ....  4       Stonecutter 

Bakers 4       Vulcanizer 

Carpenters 4       Bar  tender 

Solicitors 3       Sailor 

Weavers  (rug  and  basket)     ....  3       Ranger 

Contractors 3       Coat  maker 

Inspectors 3       Tramp 

Bottlers 3       Button  maker 

Riveters 3       Glazier 

Caddies,  guides,  jockeys 3       Art-glass  cementer 

Bricklayers 3       Glove  trimmer 

Fowl  pickers 3       Florist 

Lathe  workers 3       Dye  setter 

Mail  clerks 3       Toy  maker 

Lumbermen 3       Harness  maker 

Tool  makers 3       Reporter 

Operators  (motion  pictures)      ...  2       Steam  fitter 

Engineers  (R.R.) 2 


256  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Relatively  few  of  the  pursuits  in  the  above  list  are  skilled, 
though  in  many  of  them  there  is  some  opportunity  for  advance- 
ment. A  rough  estimate  would  seem  to  indicate  that  from  75  to 
80  per  cent  of  the  boys  were  engaged  in  unskilled  or  semiskilled 
pursuits.  By  unskilled  and  semiskilled  pursuits  is  here  meant  a 
pursuit  in  which  the  operations  to  be  performed  are  relatively  few 
in  number,  simple  in  character,  and  for  the  most  part  uncoordinated 
with  operations  which  precede  and  follow.  Most  of  these  operations 
can  be  easily  and  quickly  learned,  and  the  grade  of  ability  and  the 
responsibility  required  is  relatively  low. 

It  may  be  concluded  from  these  figures  that  the  most  common 
method  followed  by  boys  in  learning  a  vocation  is  a  trial  and 
success  "  method.  They  go  to  work  and  try  this  or  that  pursuit 
to  see  whether  or  not  they  are  suited  to  it  or  it  is  suited  to  them. 

It  may  be  contended  that  this  is  a  very  wasteful  method,  and 
undoubtedly  the  contention  can  be  supported  by  considerable  evi- 
dence. On  the  other  hand,  as  the  present  system  of  industry  is 
organized  no  adequate  substitute  has  as  yet  been  provided.  Nor 
is  it  proved  that  vocational  education  as  introduced  in  other  cities 
in  this  country  provides  a  totally  adequate  substitute. 

CORRELATION  BETWEEN   PREVIOUS  WORK  AND  FUTURE 

AMBITION 

The  last  question  that  the  investigators  were  instructed  to  ask 
of  each  boy  concerned  the  boy's  ambition.  It  was  expected  that 
many  of  them  would  be  satisfied  with  the  line  of  work  in  which 
they  were  or  had  been  engaged,  while  others  would  desire  to  enter 
other  pursuits.  In  this  connection  special  cases  may  be  interesting. 

Case  No.  1 1  began  work  as  a  clerk  at  $8  a  week,  and  after  five 
years  of  experience  was  a  clerk  receiving  $i  i  a  week.  He  had  no 
desire  to  change  his  occupation  at  the  time  of  the  investigation. 

Case  No.  18,  on  the  other  hand,  began  as  a  coal  digger  at  $14 
a  week  and  left  it  to  enter  an  automobile  shop  at  a  lower  weekly 
wage,  $6,  where  the  opportunity  for  advancement  was  much  greater 
and  the  work  of  a  more  skilled  character.  He  expressed  himself 
when  interviewed  as  ambitious  to  become  an  expert  mechanic. 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  257 

Case  No.  5  5  left  the  eighth  grade  and  began'  work  at  the  age 
of  fifteen  as  cook  at  $12.50  a  week,  and  continued  in  the  same 
position  and  at  the  same  wage  for  five  years.  During  that  time 
he  completed  a  course  in  a  correspondence  school  in  draftsmanship 
with  the  intention  of  becoming  a  draftsman. 

Case  No.  117  came  to  Des  Moines  from  Missouri.  While  in 
Missouri  he  finished  the  first  grade  of  the  public  school  when  he 
was  six  years  old.  His  father  then  took  him  out  of  school  and 
put  him  out  to  work  on  a  farm,  where  for  seven  years  -he  labored 
for  his  board  and  lodging  and  spending  money.  When  he  was 
thirteen  years  old  he  came  to  Des  Moines  and  became  a  coal 
digger  at  $12  a  week.  He  remained  in  this  occupation  for  three 
years,  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  became  a  cattle  helper  in  the 
stockyard  at  $6  per  week  and  board.  After  fifteen  years  of  ex- 
perience he  is  now  a  truck-farm  driver  receiving  $9  per  week  and 
board.  He  can  read  and  write  poorly  and  has  no  ambition  for 
any  particular  pursuit. 

The  above  cases  exhibit  the  variety  of  vocational  experience 
through  which  boys  pass.  According  to  our  data  of  the  entire 
group  of  boys  studied,  628  (75  per  cent)  had  an  ambition  and 
216  (25  per  cent)  had  no  preference  for  any  particular  occupa- 
tion ;  that  is,  they  were  satisfied  with  what  they  were  doing  or 
at  least  could  not,  at  the  time  of  the  investigation,  state  anything 
that  they  would  rather  do. 

A  boy  was  considered  as  having  an  ambition  if  he  expressed 
a  desire  to  prepare  for  and  enter  any  particular  occupation.  A 
boy  whose  ambition  for  the  future  was  along  exactly  the  same  line 
of  work  as  that  in  which  he  had  been  engaged  for  the  majority 
of  the  time  since  leaving  school  was  classed  in  the  group  whose 
previous  work  and  future  ambition  correlated  almost  perfectly.  In 
this  group  must  be  placed  35  per  cent  of  the  628  boys  having 
an  ambition. 

A  boy  who  had  been  engaged  but  a  very  small  portion  of  his 
time  since  leaving  school  in  a  line  which  corresponded  with  his 
ambition  was  classed  in  the  group  whose  previous  work  and  future 
ambition  correlated  but  slightly.  This  group  includes  23  per  cent 
of  the  ambitious  boys. 


258  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  work  of  a  boy  was  classed  as  not  correlating  with  his 
ambition  when  he  desired  to  enter  a  pursuit  in  which  he  had  had 
absolutely  no  experience.  This  group  includes  255  cases,  42  per 
cent  of  those  having  an  ambition. 

FINANCIAL  PROGRESS  IN  RELATION  TO  FUTURE  AMBITION 

The  records  of  the  boys  who  had  an  ambition  were  studied  with 
regard  to  whether  or  not  they  had  made  financial  progress  since 
leaving  school.  By  financial  progress  is  here  meant  any  increase 
no  matter  how  slight  in  weekly  wages.  The  increase  is  considered 
without  regard  to  the  age  of  the  boy  or  the  amount  of  experience 
which  he  had  received. 

Of  the  628  boys  who  had  a  definite  ambition  501  (79  per  cent) 
had  made  some  financial  progress  since  leaving  school  and  21  per 
cent  had  failed  to  make  any  financial  progress.  Of  the  210  boys 
who  had  no  definite  ambition  188  (82  per  cent)  had  made  financial 
progress  and  18  per  cent  had  failed  to  make  any  financial  prog- 
ress. There  is  practically  no  difference  between  these  two  groups 
with  respect  to  this  point.  On  the  other  hand,  93  per  cent  of  the 
ambitious  boys  whose  previous  work  correlated  almost  perfectly 
with  their  future  ambition  have  made  financial  progress,  while 
only  about  75  per  cent  of  the  boys  whose  previous  work  and 
future  ambition  correlated  but  slightly  or  not  at  all  have  made 
financial  progress.  From  these  figures  it  appears  \ha.\.  proportionally 
more  boys  who  are  'working  along  lines  in  which  they  desire  to 
continue  are  financially  successful  than  those  whose  ambitions  lie 
outside  of  the  field  of  their  previous  work. 

FINANCIAL  PROGRESS  IN  RELATION  TO   PROGRESS 
TOWARD   SKILL 

A  comparative  study  of  the  ambitious  and  the  unambitious 
groups  was  made  to  determine  the  financial  progress  and  the  rela- 
tive amount  of  progress  which  the  two  groups  had  made  toward 
skill.  It  was  recognized  that  there  are  two  ways  of  making  prog- 
ress toward  skill :  first,  by  changing  from  an  unskilled  occupation, 
as  that  of  office  or  messenger  boy,  to  a  more  skilled  occupation,  as 
that  of  clerk  or  apprentice ;  second,  by  making  progress  in  skill 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING 


259 


while  remaining  in  a  given  occupation,  as  in  printing.  In  this 
study  the  latter  was  determined  by  a  consideration  of  the  time 
spent  in  the  occupation  and  the  increase  of  wages  shown,  as  well 
as  by  the  character  of  the  occupation  itself. 

In  general  two  groups  were  easily  distinguishable,  one  making 
noted  progress  toward  skill  and  one  not  making  any  progress. 
After  some  deliberation  it  was  decided  that  credit  would  be  given 
for  noted  progress  toward  skill  only  in  case  the  record  showed 
continuous  employment  for  three  years  or  more  in  one  trade  or 
position  ;  for  example,  three  years  as  a  bricklayer  or  machinist,  etc. 
About  17  per  cent  of  the  boys  with  an  ambition  had  made  noted 
progress  toward  skill.  Only  12  per  cent  of  the  group  without  an 
ambition  had  made  noted  progress  toward  skill. 

Credit  for  no  progress  toward  skill  was  given  to  errand  boys, 
day  laborers,  farm  workers,  or  helpers  in  any  trade,  factory  posi- 
tions, or  business  for  less  than  one  year.  Approximately  63  per 
cent  of  the  boys  without  an  ambition  and  only  45  per  cent  of  the 
ambitious  boys  fall  in  this  group. 

All  others,  including  doubtful  cases,  were  placed  in  the  group 
showing  little  progress  toward  skill.  This  group  includes  25  per 
cent  of  the  unambitious  and  38  per  cent  of  the  ambitious  boys. 


TABLE  NO.  VI 


PROGRESS  IN  SKILL 

AND 

FINANCIAL  PROGRESS 

BOYS  HAVING  NO 
AMBITION 

BOYS  HAVING  AN 
AMBITION 

Number 
of  cases 

Per  cent 
of  cases 

Number 
of  cases 

Per  cent 
of  cases 

NOTABLE  PROGRESS  IN  SKILL 

27 

12 

1  06 

17 

(i)  Financial  progress 
(2)  No  financial  progress 

27 

0 

100 

104 

2 

99 
I 

LITTLE  PROGRESS  IN  SKILL 

54 

25 

238 

38 

(i)  Financial  progress 
(2)  No  financial  progress 

46 
8 

85 
15 

211 

27 

88 

12 

No  PROGRESS  IN  SKILL 

135 

63 

284 

45 

(i)  Financial  progress 
(2)  No  financial  progress 

ICO 

35 

74 
26 

2O2 

82 

7i 
29 

260  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Table  No.  VI  contains  the  data  for  the  three  groups.  From  this 
table  it  is  evident  that  a  larger  number  of  boys  with  an  ambition 
make  progress  toward  skill  than  do  boys  without  an  ambition,  and 
at  the  same  time  they  make  about  the  same  financial  progress. 


THE   DIFFERENT  OCCUPATIONS  FOR  WHICH  THE  BOYS 
DESIRED  TO  PREPARE 

The  names  of  the  different  occupations  for  which  the  ambitious 
boys  desired  to  prepare  follow.  They  are  distributed  under  nine 
headings  as  given  by  the  United  States  census  of  occupations, 
1910.  The  figures  which  precede  the  names  indicate  the  number 
of  boys  desiring  to  follow  the  particular  line. 

I.  Agriculture,  forestry,  and  animal  husbandry : 

Only  28  of  the  boys  desired  to  follow  agricultural  pursuits.  The 
number  is  suprisingly  small,  when  we  remember  that  130  of 
the  boys  had  worked  at  various  times  in  agricultural  occupations. 
Apparently  the  back-to-trie-farm  movement  has  not  affected  these 
boys  to  any  great  extent. 

//.  Extraction  of  minerals : 

Only  2  of  the  boys  expressed  themselves  as  desiring  to  be  coal 
miners.  When  we  remember  that  38  boys  had  had  experience 
along  this  line  these  figures  would  seem  to  indicate  that  mining 
is  not  an  occupation  for  which  boys  are  very  anxious  to  prepare. 

///.  Manufacturing  and  mechanical  industries  and  pursuits  : 

There  were  325  boys  who  desired  to  enter  lines  listed  under 
this  heading.  The  most  common  lines  are  as  follows  : 

65  Machinists  8  Bricklayers 

50  Printers  5  Painters  and  paper  hangers 

29  Carpenters  4  Bakers 

20  Electrical  engineers  4  Blacksmiths 

20  Mechanics  5  Jewelers 

19  Electricians  3  Boiler  makers 

1 6  Civil  engineers  3  Saddlers 

1 3  Plumbers  3  Broom  makers 

10  Candy  makers  2  Masons 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  261 


2  Lithographers 

2  Tinners 

2  Bookbinders 

Contractor 

Furniture  man 

M  older 

Tool  maker 

Bottler 


Sheet-metal  worker 

Weaver 

Locomotive  fireman 

Expert  tuner 

Vulcanizer 

Tenter 

Upholsterer 


Apparently  the  boys  are  more  interested  in  manufacturing  and 
mechanical  pursuits  than  in  agricultural  and  mining  industries. 
One  result  as  shown  in  these  figures  is  the  tendency  away 
from  many  of  the  occupations  in  which  the  boys  have  had  con- 
siderable preliminary  experience.  While  376  boys  had  some 
experience  as  general  workers  none  gave  this  as  their  ambi- 
tion. The  same  is  true  of  errand  boys,  drivers,  messenger  boys, 
wrappers,  and  packers.  The  boys  seemed  to  realize  that  many 
of  their  early  occupations  are  typical  blind  alleys.  While  more 
than  75  per  cent  of  them  were  or  had  been  employed  in  un- 
skilled lines,  over  60  per  cent  desired  to  leave  such  lines  for 
more  skilled  trades.  Only  200  had  had  experience  along  manu- 
facturing lines,  although,  as  already  shown,  325  desired  such 
experience. 

IV.   Transportation : 

Only  45  boys  desired  to  follow  lines  that  are  listed  under  this 
heading.   The  list  is  as  follows : 

1 5  Telegraphers  2  Mail  carriers 

7  Locomotive  engineers  3  Messengers 

4  Chauffeurs  2  Brakemen 

4  Mail  clerks  i  Switchman 

4  Railroad  officials  I  Fireman 
2  Railroad  dispatchers 

About  an  equal  number  of  boys  had  had  experience  along  these 
lines.  With  the  exception  of  the  messengers  these  workers  may 
be  considered  skilled  employees.  It  is  significant  that  for  the  most 
part  those  who  had  experience  in  skilled  lines  desired  to  remain 
in  the  same. 


262  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

V.   Trade  and  commerce : 

One  hundred  nineteen  boys  desired  to  enter  lines  that  are 
listed  by  the  United  States  census  as  concerned  with  trading  and 
commerce.  They  are  as  follows  : 

38  Business  men  1 2  Optical  business 

1 2  Clerks  and  agents  9  Auto  business 

9  Grocerymen  i  Decorator 


7  Pharmacists 

2  Hardware  business 

2  Bankers 

3  Cutters 

I  China  store 


Cigarette  business 
Window  trimmer 
Tailor 
Newsboy 
Butcher 


1  Cigar  maker 

About  the  same  number  of  boys  had  had  experience  along  these 
lines,  though  most  of  them  in  minor  positions,  such  as  office  boys, 
wrappers,  messengers,  etc.  Commercial  pursuits  appear  to  suc- 
ceed in  holding  children  who  had  some  preliminary  experience 
in  the  same. 

VI.  Professional  service : 

Fifty-three  boys  desired  to  enter  lines  that  are  listed  under  the 
heading  Professional  Service.    They  are  distributed  as  follows  : 

6  Musicians  ,  2  Teachers 

7  Newspaper  work  2  Actors 

4  Physicians  2  Veterinary  surgeons 

4  Lawyers  2  Dentists 

3  Draftsmen  2  Civil  service 

2  Advertising  artists  Chemist 
i  Artist                                                      Author 

i  Minister  Photo  engraver 

i  Violinist  Photographer 

i  Journalist  Vaudeville 

3  Architects  Reporter 
3  Sign  painters  Cartoonist 

Very  few  of  the  boys  had  had  any  experience  in  professional  pur- 
suits. That  so  many  of  them  desired  such  experience  is  significant. 
It  is  another  indication  of  the  inability  of  juvenile  occupations  to 
hold  their  workers.  The  boys  realize  as  they  grow  older  that  the 
skilled  trades  and  professions  offer  them  better  opportunities  for 
vocational  supremacy. 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  263 

VII.  Domestic  and  personal  service* 

3  Bootblacks  i  Cook 

3  Barbers  I  Restaurant 

3  Hotel  owners  i  Hospital  work 

2  Clothes  pressers  i  Laundry 

2  Pool-hall  business 

Only  1 6  boys  were  ambitious  to  follow  domestic  and  personal 
pursuits.  Over  75  had  had  experience  along  these  lines.  Appar- 
ently domestic  and  personal  service  is  not  primarily  attractive  to 
growing  boys. 

VIII.  Clerical  occupations : 

Clerking  is  not  an  attractive  occupation  to  many  of  these  boys. 
Only  26  were  ambitious  along  this  line.  Their  ambitions  varied 
as  follows  : 

1 5  Bookkeepers  6  Stenographers 

3  Office  work  2  Stockroom  in  store 

It  is  very  difficult  to  classify  the  remaining  boys  in  any  of  the 
foregoing  groups.  Three  of  them  desired  to  go  to  college.  One 
wanted  to  enter  the  navy,  one  to  operate  a  moving-picture  machine, 
one  to  be  a  prize  fighter,  and  one  an  aviator. 

CONCLUSIONS 

The  chief  facts  brought  out  by  this  study  may  be  summarized 
briefly  : 

1.  More  than  40  per  cent  of  the  boys  leave  schools  located  in 
cities  other  than  the  one  in  which  they  are  now  living.    This 
means  that  if  these  boys  were  to  receive  vocational  education  for 
the  various  pursuits  which  they  enter,  it  would  be  necessary  for 
them  to  receive  it  before  coming  to  Des  Moines  and  Sioux  City. 
A  compulsory  system  of   continuation-school   attendance   might 
succeed  in  reaching  most  of  these  boys. 

2.  Workers  in  juvenile  occupations  are  recruited  largely  from 
the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  grades  of  the  public  schools  and  at 
about  the  time  when  the  children  are  fourteen,  fifteen,  and  sixteen 
years  of  age. 


264  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

3.  Boys  leave  school  for  a  great  variety  of  reasons.    The  three 
most   commonly  offered   are    "necessity,"    "dissatisfaction  with 
school,"  and  "preference  for  work."    However,  lack  of  parental 
control  and  interest  is  probably  the  chief  cause. 

4.  About  75  per  cent  of  the  boys  go  to  work  immediately,  and 
only  a  very  small  percentage  are  idle  more  than  a  month  after 
leaving   school.     This  would   indicate  that  there  are  plenty  of 
opportunities  for  boys  who  want  to  work. 

5.  Over  85  per  cent  of  the  jobs  which  these  boys  entered  were 
secured  by  the  boys  themselves  with  little  or  no  assistance.    For 
the  most  part,  teachers  do  not  attempt  to  assist  them  in  securing 
employment.    The  boys  as  they  leave  school  are  thrown  on  their 
own  resources.    Vocational  guidance  would  probably  be  of  great 
value  to  most  of  these  boys. 

6.  On  the  average  a  boy  passes  through  three  jobs  in  two 
years.     It  is  evident  from  this  that  the  work  that  the  boys  are 
in  is  unsatisfactory  and  does  not  succeed  in  holding  them. 

7.  The  boys  give  a  great  variety  of  reasons  for  quitting  jobs. 
Their  chief  reason  seems  to  be  a  desire  for  better  wages.    They 
think  more  of  an  increase  in  salary  than  they  do  of  an  advance- 
ment in  skill. 

8.  The  beginning  wages  of  boys  is  about  $5.50  a  week.    This 
includes  boys  of  different  ages.   The  range  is  from  nothing  to  $20 
a  week.    Fifty  per  cent  of  the  boys  receive  a  beginning  weekly 
wage  of  from  $4.50  to  $7.    This  would  seem  fair  wages  for 
inexperienced  boys  of  these  ages. 

9.  Boys  of  the  same  age  receive  about  the  same  beginning  wage 
regardless  of  the  number  of  years  of  schooling  which  they  have 
had.    Age  is  probably  a  much  more  important  factor  than  grade 
of  schooling  in  determining  the  beginning  wage. 

10.  Boys    eighteen    years    of    age    receive    nearly   twice    the 
weekly  wage  of  boys  fourteen  years  old  when  they  leave  school. 
Between  boys   thirteen,   fourteen,   and   fifteen   years   of   age  is 
little  difference,  but  after  the  fifteenth  year  there  is  a  very  re- 
markable increase  —  $i  per  week  from  fifteen  to  sixteen,  nearly 
$1.50  from  sixteen  to  seventeen,  and  over  $i  from  seventeen 
to  eighteen. 


WORK,  WAGES,  AND  SCHOOLING  265 

1 1 .  Experience  is  the  chief  factor  in  determining  the  wages  of 
boys.    Boys  with  four  years  of  experience  double  their  wages,  and 
they  do  not  reach  a  level  until  about  the  eighth  or  ninth  year  of 
experience,  at  which  time  they  are  receiving  over  $14  a  week  and 
are  over  twenty-one  years  of  age. 

12.  Boys  are  engaged  in  over  in  different  occupations.    How- 
ever, 33  of  these  occupations  include  about  70  per  cent  of  the 
workers.    The  most  popular  occupations  are  typical  blind  alleys ; 
for  example,  helpers  and  general  workers,  drivers,  errand  messen- 
ger boys,  wrappers  and  packers,  etc. 

13.  A  rough  estimate  indicates  that  from  75  per  cent  to  80  per 
cent  of  the  boys  are  engaged  in  unskilled  or  semiskilled  pursuits. 

14.  The  most  common  method  followed  by  boys  in  learning  a 
vocation  is  a  "  trial  and  success  "  method.    They  try  this  and  that 
pursuit  to  see  whether  they  are  suited  to  it  or  it  is  suited  to 
them.     While  no  elaborate  system  of  vocational   schools  would 
entirely  eliminate  this   method  of   learning  vocations,   it  might 
succeed  in  reducing  and  eliminating  some  of  the  waste  resulting 
from  the  present  system. 

15.  Of  the  846  boys  studied,  628  (75  per  cent)  had  at  the  time 
of  the  investigation  a  definite  ambition.    That  is,  they  desired  to 
prepare  for  and  enter  a  particular  occupation. 

1 6.  Of  the  group  having  an  ambition,  35  per  cent  were  am- 
bitious along  lines  of  work  in  which  they  already  had  had  most 
of  their  vocational  experience. 

17.  In  the  case  of  about  23  per  cent  of  the  ambitious  boys 
there  was  but  a  very  slight  correlation  between  their  previous  work 
and  their  ambitions. 

1 8.  In  the  case  of  42  per  cent  of  those  having  an  ambition 
there  was  absolutely  no  correlation  between  their  previous  work 
and  their  ambition. 

19.  Proportionally,  more  boys  who  are  working  along  lines  in 
which  they  desire  to  continue  are  financially  successful  than  those 
whose  ambitions  lie  outside  of  the  fields  of  their  previous  work. 

20.  A  larger  number  of  boys  with  an  ambition  make  some  prog- 
ress toward  skill  than  do  boys  without  an  ambition.    By  progress 
toward  skill  is  here  meant  advancing  toward  a  skilled  pursuit  by 


266  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

changing  occupations  or  by  advancing  in  skill  while  remaining  in 
an  occupation,  as  in  printing.  From  these  figures  it  would  seem 
that  ambitious  boys  are  more  successful  than  unambitious  boys, 
measured  either  in  terms  of  skill  or  in  amount  of  weekly  wages. 

2 1 .  Fewer  than  20  per  cent  of  the  boys  who  had  had  experience 
in  agricultural  pursuits  desired  to  remain  in  the  same.  Apparently 
the  back-to-the-farm  movement  has  not  affected  these  boys  to  any 
great  degree. 

22.  Mining  is  not  an  occupation  for  which  boys  desire  to  pre- 
pare.   Only  2  of  the  38  boys  who  had  had  experience  along  this 
line  desired  to  continue  in  it. 

23.  Manufacturing  and  mechanical  industries  and  pursuits  attract 
more  than  50  per  cent  of  the  boys.    This  is  true  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  less  than  40  per  cent  had  had  experience  along  these 
lines.    The  boys  want  to  be  machinists,  printers,  carpenters,  elec- 
tricians, mechanics,  plumbers,  and  engineers.   They  are  also  greatly 
interested  in  commercial  pursuits.    In  all,  1 19  boys  desired  to  fol- 
low such  lines.    A  very  few  are  interested  in  professional  services, 
domestic  and  personal  service,  and  clerical  occupations. 


A  STUDY  OF  THE  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  OF 
GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS 

BY  ELLEN  M.  GREANY 

(From  Educational  Administration  and  Supervision,  March,  1915) 

That  the  average  grammar-school  graduate  of  a  generation  ago 
should  have  a  life-career  motive  was  unthinkable  alike  to  parents 
and  to  educators.  There  was,  of  course,  the  rare  musical  genius, 
and  the  mathematical  prodigy,  whose  abilities  it  was  clearly  advan- 
tageous to  foster,  but  for  the  normal  child,  who  exhibited  no  marked 
talents,  why  consider  a  matter  so  remote  as  a  life-career  ?  It  could 
be  decided  upon  at  the  close  of  his  high-school  course,  or,  if  he 
were  going-  on  to  college,  let  the  decision  be  put  off  still  longer. 
If  he  belonged  to  the  great  army  of  those  to  whom  leaving  the 
grammar  school  meant  going  to  work,  then  he  must  find  a  job. 
Very  likely  he  was  too  young  to  begin  to  learn  a  trade.  Nobody 
had  ever  analyzed  with  him  seriously  his  capabilities  or  his  limita- 
tions, nor  had  he  ever  received  any  systematic  or  definite  informa- 
tion concerning  the  industrial  opportunities  about  him.  To  go  to 
work  did  not  necessarily  mean  to  take  up  a  permanent  occupation. 
It  merely  meant  to  get  a  job.  If  he  differentiated  among  jobs  at 
all,  it  was  probable  that  he  had  a  vague  hope  that  the  one  which 
fell  to  his  lot  should  not  be  too  strenuous  or  too  poorly  paid. 

But  the  growth  of  the  vocational-guidance  movement,  and  the 
increasing  specialization  of  our  secondary  school  and  college  courses, 
have  called  the  attention  of  those  interested  in  child  welfare  to  the 
tremendous  waste  of  human  talent  and  economic  productivity  which 
is  traceable  to  the  lack  of  an  early-conceived  life  motive. 

The  philosophy  which  underlies  the  vocational-guidance  move- 
ment may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows  : 

There  is  marked  variety  in  inborn  gifts. 

The  greatest  happiness  and  the  highest  efficiency  result  from 
the  exercise  of  native  talents  in  the  right  environment. 

267 


268  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

For  the  great  masses  of  men,  life  is  organized  around  work. 
"  Nothing,"  says  Marshall,  "  influences  a  man  so  much  as  the 
work  he  does,  unless  it  be  his  religion." 

Such  a  philosophy  focuses  attention  upon  the  seriousness  of  the 
blind-alley  trades.  It  points  out  the  significance  of  a  study  of  occu- 
pational classification.  It  emphasizes  the  importance  of  wide  voca- 
tional information.  It  wants  education  and  industry  to  bring  out  the 
best  in  every  individual.  It  calls  upon  the  individual  for  self-analy- 
sis. It  is  vitally  interested  in  equality  of  opportunity  and  diffusion  of 
education.  It  is  directed  against  every  form  of  maladjustment,  and 
its  goal  is  well-rounded,  fully  developed  manhood  and  womanhood. 

If  we  accept  the  premises  of  vocational  guidance,  we  must  be 
deeply  concerned  with  the  job  which  the  child  takes  when  he  leaves 
the  grammar  school.  But  the  higher  school  which  his  classmate 
chooses  is  of  no  less  interest  to  us.  Our  high  schools  and  the 
courses  which  they  offer  are  yearly  becoming  more  highly  special- 
ized. The  "general  course  "  is  rapidly  becoming  obsolete!  One  must 
know,  when  he  enters  the  high  school,  whether  he  is  headed  for  col- 
lege, or  the  normal  school,  or  a  business  career,  or  stenography,  or 
mechanical  work,  or  what  not.  This  means  that  he  must  know  his 
tastes  and  capabilities  and  the  general  requirements  of  the  work 
which  he  hopes  to  do.  Otherwise  multitudes  of  our  boys  and  girls 
will  continue,  as  they  have  in  the  past,  to  choose  their  high  school  for 
such  trivial  reasons  as  "  because  so  and  so  is  going  there,"  "  because 
it  has  a  good  track  team,"  "  because  they  say  the  lessons  are  easy," 
etc.  Our  high  schools  will  continue  to  cope  unsuccessfully  with  mis- 
fits. The  boy  who  would  have  been  interested  and  proficient  in  the 
industrial  work  of  the  Mechanic  Arts  High  School  will  be  found  strug- 
gling unsuccessfully  with  the  business  courses  of  the  High  School 
of  Commerce.  The  girl  who  would  have  made  a  capable  and  artistic 
milliner  will  be  a  dull  and  unsatisfactory  member  of  the  class  in  sten- 
ography. Both  children  will  very  likely  drop  out  of  the  high  school 
in  a  few  months  and  join  the  30  per  cent  of  our  first-year  high-school 
pupils  who  annually  recruit  the  ranks  of  untrained  juvenile  workers. 

It  seems,  therefore,  that  the  closing  year  of  the  grammar-school 
course  is  the  most  advantageous  time  for  the  boy  or  girl  to  decide 
upon  a  life-career.  But  the  real  initiative  in  the  choice  must  come 


A  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS          269 

from  the  child  himself.  There  arises  the  tremendously  vital  ques- 
tion, Has  the  child  of  age  and  capacity  to  graduate  from  our  gram- 
mar schools  any  permanent  interest  ?  Is  he  capable  of  visualizing 
his  occupational  future  ?  Can  he  be  helped  to  study  himself,  to 
study  the  occupations  about  him,  and  thus  be  led  to  an  intelligent, 
discriminating  choice  ?  Is  it  possible  to  reduce  the  theory  of  voca- 
tional guidance  to  a  practical  working  program,  so  that  it  shall  be 
less  vague  to  the  teacher  and  more  valuable  to  the  pupil  ? 

In  the  hope  of  getting  some  reliable  answers  to  the  above 
questions  an  investigation  was  made  in  five  graduating  classes 
of  four  Massachusetts  city  schools  in  1913.  The  purpose  of  the 
investigation  was  outlined  as  follows  : 

1 .  To  discover  whether  there  exists  in  the  minds  of  certain  groups 
of  eighth-grade  elementary-school  pupils  the  vision  of  a  vocation. 

2.  To  find  how  this  vocational  vision  has  been  acquired,  what  is 
known  of  the  avenues  of  entrance  to  the  chosen  career,  the  charac- 
teristics necessary  to  success  in  it,  its  limitations,  and  its  rewards. 

3.  To  show  increased  tenacity  of  purpose  or  the  awakening 
and  development  of  a  visualized  vocational  purpose,  as  brought 
about  through  a  course  of  systematic,  expository  instruction  in 
vocational  and  educational  opportunities. 

The  procedure  of  the  investigation  was  as  follows  : 
Five  eighth-grade  classes  were  selected,  where  the  heredity, 
environmental  influence,  economic  conditions,  social  standing,  and 
probable  ideals  of  the  pupils  appeared  to  be  somewhat  similar. 
These  classes  were  two  in  the  Hugh  O'Brien  School  of  Roxbury, 
and  one  each  in  the  Kelly  and  Houghton  schools  of  Cambridge 
and  the  Bingham  School  of  Somerville.  There  were  42  boys  and 
45  girls  in  the  first-named  school  and  a  total  of  34  boys  and  57 
girls  in  the  three  other  classes.  During  the  last  week  of  March  and 
the  first  week  of  April,  1913,  all  five  classes  were  given  a  forty- 
minute  preliminary  test.  After  a  brief  explanation  to  the  children, 
telling  them  that  this  was  not  a  school  examination  but  merely  an 
inquiry  which  was  made  by  people  who  were  interested  in  them, 
the  following  questions  were  put,  one  at  a  time,  on  the  blackboard. 

I.  How  do  you  intend  to  earn  your  living  when  you  are  all  through  going 
to  school? 


2/0  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

2.  How  do  your  parents  wish  you  to  earn  your  living? 

3.  (a)  Have  you  any  relatives  or  friends  who  are  interested  in  how  you 

are  going  to  earn  your  living? 
(ft)  If  so,  what  do  they  wish  you  to  do  ? 

4.  (a)  Why  have  you  decided  to  earn  your  living  in  this  way  ? 

(b)  Did  you  make  your  choice  from  something  you  have  read  ? 

(c)  Do  you  know  anyone  who  does  the  kind  of  work  you  have  chosen  ? 

5.  (a)  What  education  do  you  need  to  fit  yourself  for  the  kind  of  work 

you  intend  to  do  ? 

(b}  How  much  longer  will  you  have  to  go  to  school? 
(c)  If  you  need  to  go  to  the  high  school,  which  is  the  best  one  to  go  to  ? 

6.  How  much  will  it  cost  your  parents  to  fit  you  for  the  kind  of  work  you 

are  going  to  do  ? 

7.  What  kind  of  a  boy  (or  girl)  would  be  most  successful  in  the  kind  of 

work  you  are  going  to  do  ? 

8.  (a)  Do  you  expect  to  work  very  hard? 

(b)  Is  it  a  healthful  occupation  ? 

(c)  How  many  hours  a  day  do  you  expect  to  work? 

9.  How  much  pay  do  you  expect  to  get  each  week  of  the  first  year  that 

you  work  ? 
10.  (a)  What  chance  do  you  think  there  is  to  get  more  pay  as  you  grow 

older  ? 
(b)  What  is  the  highest  pay  you  can  probably  ever  get  ? 

A  series  of  fifteen  lessons  was  then  planned  for  the  children 
of  the  Hugh  O'Brien  School  who  had  taken  the  preliminary  test. 
The  other  three  classes  were  to  remain  uninstructed.  The  first 
three  lessons  were  given  to  boys  and  girls  together,  the  remaining 
twelve  were  given  to  them  separately.  The  subjects  of  the  lessons 
were  as  follows : 

Lesson  i.  General  Classification  of  Occupations. 

Lesson  2.  Opportunities  for  Boys  and  Girls  from  1 4  to  1 6  years  old. 

Lesson  3.  Opportunities  for  Boys  and  Girls  from  16  to  20  years  old. 

Lesson  4.  The  Doctor  (Boys).    The  Teacher  (Girls). 

Lesson  5.  Civil  Service  (Boys).    The  Stenographer  (Girls). 

Lesson  6.  The  Printer  (Boys).    The  Telephone  Operator  (Girls). 

Lesson  7.  The  Building  Trades  (Boys).   The  Trained  Nurse  (Girls). 

Lesson  8.  The  Business  Man  (Boys).   The  Dressmaker  (Girls),  The  Milliner 

(Girls). 

Lesson  9.  The  Machinist  (Boys).    The  Saleswoman  (Girls). 

The  aim  of  the  first  lesson  was  to  give  the  children  a  general 
survey  of  occupations  and  thus  call  their  attention  to  the  many 
varieties  of  work  from  which  it  may  be  possible  for  a  youth  to 


A  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS         271 

choose.  As  the  working  opportunities  for  children  and  adults 
necessarily  differ,  it  was  thought  well  to  make  the  second  and 
third  lessons  a  survey  of  the  occupations  usually  open  to  those  in 
adolescence.  An  attempt  was  made  to  select  for  the  remaining 
lessons  occupations  not  only  representative  of  the  different  groups 
given  in  the  general  classification,  but  also  those  concerning  which 
fairly  reliable  information  was  accessible,  and  which  appeared  to 
be  within  the  realm  of  the  interests  and  possible  future  choice  of 
the  children.  As  only  nine  lessons  could  be  given  to  the  boys 
and  girls  before  the  close  of  school,  the  choice  of  subjects  was, 
of  course,  further  limited. 

The  lessons  were  given  on  nine  successive  Tuesday  mornings, 
beginning  on  April  15  and  ending  on  June  10.  They  were  forty 
minutes  in  length  and  followed  these  outlines  : 

LESSON  1 
Kinds  of  work. 
I.    Brain  and  hand  workers. 

1.  Professional  workers. 

2.  Public-service  workers. 

(a)  Officials  of  the  federal  government. 
Officials  of  the  state  government. 
Officials  of  the  county  government. 
Officials  of  the  city  government. 
Officials  of  the  town  government. 

(b)  Officials  of  the  army  and  navy. 

3.  Managerial  and  commercial  workers. 

4.  Personal-service  workers. 
II.    Hand  and  brain  workers. 

1.  Skilled  workers. 

2.  Semiskilled  workers. 

3.  Unskilled  workers. 

This  outline  was  filled  out  by  the  pupils,  aided  by  the  questions  and 
suggestions  of  the  teacher. 

LESSON  2 

1.  General  opportunities  for  boys  and  girls  from  14  to  16  years  old. 

2.  Reasons  why  these  opportunities  are  so  few. 

3.  Reasons  why  some  employers  are  willing  to  take  children  between 

14  and  1 6  years  old. 

4.  General  health  conditions  in  these  occupations. 

1.  Compared  with  school  conditions. 

2.  Dangerous  occupations. 


272  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

5.  Beginning  wage. 

6.  Future  prospects. 

(a)  As  to  wage. 

(b)  As  to  increase  of  skill. 

(c)  As  to  mental  growth. 

LESSON  3 

1.  Opportunities  between  14-161 

,  ^compared. 

Opportunities  between  10-20) 

2.  Reasons  why  16-20  opportunities  are  greater. 

3.  Amount  and  kind  of  education  needed  for  the  various  groups  of 

occupations  given  in  the  general  classification. 

Lists  of  industries  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Hugh  O'Brien  School 
discovered  and  reported  by  the  children.  (Not  directly  related  to  the  subject 
of  the  lesson.) 

Lessons  4-9  were  developed  according  to  the  following  topics  : 

1.  The  Occupation. 

2.  General  Characteristics  needed  for  Success  in  this  Occupation. 

3.  Education  needed. 

4.  Age  of  Entrance  to  the  Occupation. 

5.  Time  it  takes  for  Training. 

6.  Cost  of  Training. 

7.  Chance  to  get  Training  in  Boston. 

8.  Wages  and  Demand  for  Workers. 

(a)  Beginning  Wage. 

(b)  Average  Adult  Wage. 

9.  Health  Conditions. 

(a)  Hours. 

(b)  Strain. 

10.  Is  it  a  Seasonal  Occupation? 

1 1 .  Chance  for  Promotion. 

1 2.  Value  to  Society. 

13.  Relative  Desirability. 

The  last  topic  was  not  added  until  Lesson  6,  when  the  pre- 
ceding lessons  had  established  some  definite  data  which  might 
be  used  for  profitable  comparison. 

On  the  day  following  the  teaching  the  children  had  thirty 
minutes  to  write  what  they  remembered  of  what  had  been  talked 
over  in  the  lessons.  No  assistance  and  no  topics  were  given 
them,  the  object  being  to  test  the  reaction  rather  than  to  get 
a  finished  composition. 


A  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS 


273 


The  synopsis  which  follows  records  the  resultant  reaction  on 
the  matter  presented  in  the  last  twelve  lessons. 

PERCENTAGE  OF  REACTION  ON  TOPICS  TREATED   IN  LESSONS 

BOYS'  LESSONS 

456789 


I. 

2. 

3- 

4- 

5- 
6. 

7- 
8. 

9- 

10. 

1  1. 

12. 

The  occupation  and  sub. 
Characteristics  .... 

•§ 

H 

Civil  service 

L, 

&       s 

60 

-c           c 

H          a 

The  business 
man 

The  machini 

div.     .    .     48.7 

IOO. 

78.5 
64.2 
85-7 
54-9 
9-5 

2-3 

9-5 
33-3 
14.2 

9-5 
28.5 
21.4 

81.3     loo. 
72.         63.4 
60.4       58.5 
48.9       24.3 

34-8       34-1 
16.3       11.5 
34-8       36.5 
67.4       82.9 

55-8      75-5 
27.9      48.7 

34-8      39- 
39-5      4i-4 
16.3      41.4 

6           7 

48.7 
90.2 
87.8 

7-3 
2.4 
51.2 

46-3 
41.4 
41.4 

46.3 
14.6 

58.5 
8 

36.8 
60.5 
68.3 
60.5 

iS-7 
71- 

81.5 

657 
18.3 

44-7 
42.1 

9 

Education  needed 

7O.7 

Age  of  entrance 

....       65.8 

Time  it  takes  to  learn    . 

4Q.8 

Cost  of  learning 

7.  1 

Chance  in  Boston  . 

Wages    

IA.I 

Health  condition    . 

.      .             O 

Seasonal     

O 

Chance  for  promotion    . 

Value  to  society     .     .    . 

70.7 

Relative  desirability  .    . 

GIRLS'  LESSONS 
4           5 

I. 
2. 

3- 
4- 
5- 
6. 

7- 
8. 

9- 

10. 

1  1. 
12. 

I"! 

The  occupation  and  sub.  div.     . 
Characteristics  ........ 

<L> 

H 

n 

if      v 

Ho1       H 

u 

H 

5  ^ 

•     77-5 

.    IOO. 

66.6 
89-5 
58.3 
52- 
33-3 
58.3 
91.6 

93-7 
64.5 
10.4 

58.3 
18.7 

80.4       85. 
95.6     100. 

78.2    84.7 
69.5    63. 
80.      73.9 
91.3     58.6 
65.2     30.4 

80.4      89.1 

76.      76. 
26.      23.9 
71.7     71.7 
36.9     50. 

TO.           67.4 

88.3 
IOO. 

83.7 

62.7 

67.4 

18.6 
90.6 
88.3 
55-8 
53-4 
62.7 
18.6 
62.7 

88.3 
IOO. 

86. 
76.7 
27.8 
39-5 
25-5 

IOO. 

76.7 

46.5 

81.3 
30.2 
69.7 

Education  needed      

.     62.1; 

Age  of  entrance     

50. 

Time  it  takes  to  learn    .... 

.     66.6 

Cost  of  learning     

Chance  in  Boston  

QI.6 

Wages    

.       62.  5 

Health  condition    

-J-J.T 

Seasonal     
Chance  for  promotion    .... 

O 
.         6.2 

Value  to  society     

CO. 

Relative  desirability  . 

274 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


As  the  percentages  indicate,  the  reports  were,  on  the  whole, 
very  satisfactory.  They  gave  abundant  evidence  that  the  subject 
matter  is  within  the  scope  of  the  interest  and  understanding  of 
eighth-grade  pupils. 

In  the  last  school  week  of  June  both  the  instructed  and  the 
uninstructed  classes  were  given  the  same  test  as  in  March,  with 
the  addition  of  the  following  question  : 

ii.  (a)  Have  you  thought  over  any  occupation  and  then  decided  not  to 

take  it  up  ? 
(b)  What  are  the  reasons  why  you  decided  not  to  take  it  up  ? 

After  the  completion  of  this  test  the  results  of  both  this  and 
the  March  test  were  carefully  examined.  The  following  table  indi- 
cates the  general  classes  of  occupations  into  which  the  children's 
choice  fell : 


MARCH 

,  Instructed  \     ,  — 

Uninstructed  s 

No. 

% 

B 

G 

B 

G 

No. 

% 

B 

G 

B 

G 

Professions  .    .    . 

12 

I3.8 

5 

7 

5.8 

8.1 

15 

16.5 

6 

9 

6-7 

9-9 

Teachers  .    .    . 

8 

9.2 

I 

7 

I.I 

8.1 

8 

8.8 

0 

8 

.0 

8.8 

Civil  service     .    . 

i 

I.I 

I 

o 

I.I 

o 

4 

4-4 

4 

o 

4-4 

o 

Business  .... 

5 

5-8 

4 

I 

4.6 

i.i 

6 

6.6 

4 

2 

4-4 

2.2 

Commercial      .    . 

19 

21.9 

2 

17 

2-3 

19-5 

27 

29.7 

2 

25 

2.2 

27-4 

Stenographers  . 

12 

13.8 

0 

12 

o 

13.8 

9 

9-9 

0 

9 

0 

9-9 

Bookkeepers    . 

4 

4.6 

O 

4 

0 

4.6 

6 

6.6 

O 

6 

O 

6.7 

Trades      .... 

18 

2O.6 

13 

5 

14.9 

5.8 

13 

14.2 

II 

2 

12.0 

2.2 

D.  K.  (don't  know) 

27 

31.0 

14 

T3 

16.1 

14.9 

12 

13.2 

4 

8 

4-4 

8.8 

Miscellaneous  .    . 

5 

5.8 

3 

2 

3-4 

2-3 

14 

15-4 

3 

ii 

3-3 

12.0 

Army    .... 

i 

I.I 

i 

O 

i.i 

0 

0 

0 

0 

o 

o 

O 

Dancer      .    .    . 

0 

o 

0 

O 

o 

o 

I 

i.i 

o 

0 

0 

I.I 

Farmer      .    .    . 

o 

o 

0 

O 

o 

o 

I 

i.i 

I 

o 

i.i 

0 

Hairdresser  .     . 

o 

o 

o 

O 

o 

o 

O 

0 

0 

o 

o 

o 

Musicians      .    . 

I 

I.I 

I 

0 

I.I 

o 

3 

3-3 

2 

I 

2.2 

I.I 

Music  teacher  . 

o 

o 

o 

O 

0 

0 

4 

4-4 

O 

4 

O 

4.4 

Nurse    .... 

0 

0 

o 

O 

o 

o 

i 

i.i 

0 

i 

0 

I.I 

Private  sec'y     . 

o 

o 

0 

o 

0 

o 

0 

o 

o 

o 

O 

o 

Proofreader  .    . 

0 

0 

o 

o 

o 

o 

i 

i.i 

0 

I 

0 

I.I 

Sailor    .... 

I 

I.I 

I 

0 

I.I 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

O 

o 

Tel.  operator    . 

2 

2-3 

o 

2 

0 

2-3 

3 

3-3 

0 

3 

0 

3-3 

Totals    .    . 

87 

IOO.O 

42 

45 

48.2 

51-7 

91 

IOO.O 

34 

57 

37-4 

62.6 

A  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS         275 


JUNE 

,  Instructed—      x 

XT*                                M 

No. 

% 

B 

G 

B 

G 

Professions  .    .    . 

14 

16.1 

5 

9 

5-8 

10.3 

Teachers  .    .    . 

10 

u.6 

i 

9 

i.i 

10.3 

Civil  service     .    . 

i 

i.i 

i 

o 

I.O 

o 

Business  .... 

ii 

12.6 

IO 

I 

u.6 

I.I 

Commercial      .    . 

21 

24.1 

I 

20 

i.i 

23.0 

Stenographers  . 

14 

16.1 

o 

14 

o 

16.1 

Bookkeepers    . 

4 

4-6 

o 

4 

o 

4.6 

Trades      .... 

27 

31.0 

20 

7 

22.9 

8.1 

D.  K.  (don't  know) 

7 

8.0 

3 

4 

3-4 

4.6 

Miscellaneous  .    . 

6 

6.9 

2 

4 

2-3 

4.6 

Army    .... 

o 

o 

0 

0 

o 

0 

Dancer     .    .    . 

0 

o 

O 

o 

o 

o 

Farmer     .    .    . 

o 

o 

O 

o 

0 

0 

Hairdresser  .    . 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

Musicians     .    . 

I 

I.I 

I 

o 

I.I 

o 

Music  teacher  . 

o 

o 

O 

0 

o 

o 

Nurse    .... 

3 

3-4 

0 

3 

o 

3-4 

Private  sec'y     . 

0 

0 

o 

o 

0 

o 

Proofreader  .     . 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

Sailor    .... 

I 

I.I 

I 

o 

I.I 

o 

Tel.  operator    . 

I 

I.I 

o 

I 

o 

I.I 

Totals    .    . 

87 

IOO.O 

42 

45 

48.2 

51.8 

Uninstructed 


No. 

% 

B 

G 

B 

G 

6 

6.7 

2 

4 

2.2 

4.4 

4 

4-4 

O 

4 

O 

4-4 

2 

2.2 

2 

o 

2.2 

o 

5 

5-4 

3 

2 

3-3 

2.2 

28 

30-7 

i 

27 

I.I 

29.6 

12 

13.2 

0 

12 

O 

I3.2 

6 

6.7 

0 

6 

0 

6.6 

13 

14.2 

II 

2 

I2.O 

2.2 

22 

24.2 

14 

8 

154 

8.8 

15 

16.5 

I 

14 

I.I 

15.4 

O 

o 

0 

o 

O 

0 

O 

o 

0 

o 

o 

o 

O 

0 

o 

o 

0 

o 

I 

I.I 

o 

I 

o 

I.I 

2 

2.2 

I 

I 

I.I 

I.I 

5 

5-4 

0 

5 

o 

5-4 

I 

i.i 

o 

i 

0 

i.i 

2 

2.2 

o 

2 

0 

2.2 

I 

I.I 

0 

I 

o 

I.I 

O 

0 

0 

0 

o 

O 

3 

3-3 

0 

3 

o 

3-3 

91 

99.8 

34 

57 

37-4 

62.6 

A  glance  at  the  list  of  occupations  chosen  by  the  two  groups  in 
March  shows  that  the  percentages  of  those  whose  choice  lay  in  the 
professions,  business,  commercial  work,  and  trade  were  approxi- 
mately even  enough  to  indicate  that  the  vocational  desires  of  these 
children  were  fairly  similar,  and  hence  to  warrant  the  confidence 
that  the  groups  had  not  been  unwisely  chosen  for  comparison. 

It  will  also  be  noted  that  in  the  March  test  3 1  per  cent  of  those 
to  be  instructed  answered  that  they  did  not  know  what  their  future 
occupation  was  to  be.  Thirteen  and  two-tenths  per  cent  of  the 
group  which  was  not  to  be  instructed  gave  the  same  answer.  In  the 
June  test  the  percentage  of  "don't  knows"  in  the  first  group  dimin- 
ished to  8  and,  rather  singularly,  rose  to  22  in  the  second  group. 

A  further  comparison  of  the  results  of  the  tests  points  out  that 
there  is  for  the  instructed  classes  in  June  a  slight  growth  in  the 
number  of  those  who  proposed  to  enter  the  professions  and 


2/6  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

commercial  work  and  a  relatively  large  increase  in  the  number  of 
those  who  chose  business  and  trades.  Seventy  and  one-tenth  per 
cent  of  the  instructed  children  gave  as  their  chosen  occupations 
those  which  had  been  the  subjects  of  lessons  in  school.  In  the 
uninstructed  group  we  find  a  slight  increase  in  the  number  of  those 
who  chose  commercial  work  and  a  relatively  large  decline  among 
those  who  chose  professions.  The  number  of  those  choosing 
business  and  the  trades  remained  about  the  same. 

Question  2  brought  out  the  information  in  the  March  test  that 
42.5  per  cent  of  the  children  to  be  instructed  and  18.7  per  cent  of 
the  parallel  group  did  not  know  how  their  parents  wished  them  to 
earn  their  living.  The  figures  changed  in  June  to  1 5  per  cent  and 
22  per  cent  respectively.  It  is  not  to  be  inferred,  however,  that 
the  parents  were  altogether  uninterested.  It  is  rather  that,  in  the 
usual  fashion  of  the  juvenile  American,  the  child  made  the  choice 
and  the  parent  did  not,  as  a  rule,  oppose  it,  for  39.2  per  cent  of 
the  first  group  and  69.2  per  cent  of  the  second  said  in  March  that 
their  choice  was  unhampered  by  the  parents.  In  June  58.6  per  cent 
and  54.9  per  cent  gave  a  similar  answer. 

To  question  3  (a),  "  Have  you  any  relatives  or  friends  who  are 
interested  in  how  you  are  going  to  earn  your  living  ? "  69.7  per 
cent  and  44  per  cent  replied  that  their  relatives  were  not  interested. 
The  figures  given  in  June  were  52.9  per  cent  and  50.5  per  cent. 

To  question  4  (a),  "  Why  have  you  decided  to  earn  your  living 
in  this  way  ?  "  38  per  cent  of  the  first  group  and  1 1  per  cent  of 
the  second  replied  in  March  that  they  did  not  know.  In  June 
5.7  per  cent  and  28.6  per  cent  gave  the  same  answer. 

Question  4  (£),  "  Did  you  make  your  choice  from  something 
you  have  read  ?  "  brought  affirmative  answers  as  follows : 

, Instructed ^  , Uninstructed x 

March  June  March  June 

5-7  8.0  7.7  4.4 

Question  4  (c),  "  Do  you  know  anyone  who  does  the  kind  of 
work  you  have  chosen  ? "  received  the  following  percentages  of 
affirmative  replies : 

/ Instructed v  , Uninstructed \ 

March  June  March  June 

4i-4  71-3  73-6    '  57-i 


A  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS          277 

In  June  38  per  cent  of  the  instructed  children  made  the  un- 
solicited reply  that  they  had  chosen  an  occupation  because  they 
decided  that  they  liked  it  when  they  had  talked  it  over  in  school. 

The  answers  to  question  5  (a),  "  What  education  do  you  need 
to  fit  yourself  for  the  kind  of  work  you  intend  to  do  ?  "  (b)  "  How 
much  longer  will  you  have  to  go  to  school  ?  "  (c)  "  If  you  need 
to  go  to  the  high  school,  which  is  the  best  one  to  go  to  ?  "  divided 
themselves  as  follows  : 

, Instructed v  , Uninstructed N 

March  June  March  June 

Wrong  idea  of  the  education  necessary : 

ii-5%  5-7%  6.6%  8.8% 

Right  idea  of  the  education  necessary : 

49-5%  80.5%  51.6%  46.1% 

Did  not  know  what  education  is  necessary : 

6.9%  4.6%  20-9%  12.1% 

Thought  no  more  education  needed  : 

1.1%  1.1%  7-7%  8.8% 

Made  no  choice  of  occupation  : 

31.1%  8.1%  13.2%  24.2% 

Question  6,  "  How  much  will  it  cost  your  parents  to  fit  you  for 
the  kind  of  work  you  are  going  to  do  ?  "  was  evidently  interpreted 
quite  generally  by  the  children  as  referring  to  the  cost  of  the 
necessary  education.  The  answers  were  these : 

, Instructed v  , Uninstructed s 

March                      June  March  June 
"  Don't  know  "  the  cost : 

574%                      H-9%  40.6%  40.6% 
Will  cost  nothing : 

2.3%                         54%  14-3%  17-6% 
Reasonable  estimate  of  the  cost : 

5.8%                       18.4%  13-2%  n% 
Unreasonable  estimate  of  the  cost : 

3-4%                       4-6%  18.7%  6.6% 
Made  no  choice  of  occupation  : 

31-3%                       8-!%  J3-2%  24-2% 

Question  7  asked,  "  What  kind  of  a  boy  (or  girl)  would  be  most 
successful  in  the  kind  of  work  you  are  going  to  do  ? "  The  sum 
total  of  the  qualities  enumerated  in  March  by  the  classes  to  be 


278  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

instructed  was  nineteen ;  the  parallel  group  gave  twenty.  Only  two 
qualities  were  agreed  upon  by  more  than  10  per  cent  of  the  first 
group;  they  were  "intelligent,"  given  by  10.3  per  cent,  and 
"smart,"  given  by  14.9  per  cent;  27.5  per  cent  of  the  children 
who  were  to  remain  uninstructed  wrote  "application,"  25.2  per 
cent  "  honest  "  and  17.6  per  cent  "  neat  and  clean."  In  June  also 
these  same  qualities  were  the  ones  most  frequently  cited,  but  the 
percentages  diminished  to  16.5  per  cent,  22  per  cent,  and  9.9  per 
cent  respectively.  In  the  June  answers  of  the  instructed  group 
"education"  was  given  as  a  desirable  quality  by  18.5  per  cent, 
"  good  sight  and  hearing  "  by  16.1  per  cent,  "  health  and  strength  " 
by  32.1  per  cent,  "intelligence  "  by  19.5  per  cent,  "neat  and  clean" 
by  28.7  per  cent,  "quick"  by  42.5  per  cent,  and  "smart"  by 
22.9  per  cent. 

To  question  8  (a),  "Do  you  expect  to  work  very  hard  ?  "  the 
answers  were  as  follows  : 

, Instructed ^  , Uninstructed \ 

March  June  March  June 

"  Don't  know  " : 

ii-S%  8.1%  6.6%  13.2% 

"  Expect  to  work  hard  "  : 

24-1%  36-7%  39-5%  23-!% 

"  Do  not  expect  to  work  hard  " : 

33-3%  47-i%  40-7%  39-5% 

In  March  64.3  per  cent  of  the  group  to  be  instructed  answered 
to  (b),  "Is  it  a  healthful  occupation?"  "Yes,"  but  gave  no  reason 
for  the  reply.  In  June  all  but  21.8  per  cent  gave  reasons  why 
they  considered  the  occupation  healthful.  In  the  uninstructed 
classes  83.5  per  cent  in  March  and  71.4  per  cent  in  June  said  the 
occupation  was  healthful,  but  failed  to  tell  why. 

Question  8  (c)  asked  "How  many  hours  a  day  do  you  expect  to 
work  ?  "  The  answers  were  these  : 

, — Instructed-^  , — Uninstructed^ 

March       June  March           June 

"  Don't  know "  the  hours M-9%         4-6%  8.8%           12.1% 

Reasonable  estimate 45-9%       81.6%  70.3%           59-3% 

Unreasonable  estimate 8.1%         5.7%  7.7%            4.4% 


A  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS          279 

The  answers  to  question  9,  "  How  much  pay  do  you  expect 
to  get  each  week  of  the  first  year  that  you  work  ?  "  distributed 
themselves  as  follows  : 

,— Instructed^,  ^-Uninstructed-^ 

March       June  March  June 

"  Don't  know "  the  wages 19.5%         5.7%  16.5%  23.1% 

Reasonable  estimate 25.3%       65.5%  37.4%  28.5% 

Unreasonable  estimate 24.1%       20.7%  32-9%  24.2% 

Question  10  (a),  "  What  chance  do  you  think  there  is  to  get 
more  pay  as  you  grow  older  ?  "  aimed  to  bring  out  the  children's 
ideas  of  the  opportunity  for  promotion  in  their  chosen  occupations. 
The  answers  divided  readily  into  the  following  groups : 

,— Instructed— >,  ^-Uninstructed^ 

March       June  March           June 

"Idon'tknow" 17.2%        8.1%  28.6%           29.7% 

"  A  good  chance " i?-2%       14.8%  8.8%           16.4% 

« A  fair  chance " 34.5%       66.7%  49.4%           29.7% 

"No  chance"      2.3% 

Question  10  (£),  "What  is  the  highest  pay  you  can  probably 
ever  get?  "  brought  answers  as  follows  : 

,— Instructed^,  ,— Uninstructed-^, 

March       June  March           June 

"Idon'tknow" 18.4%       10.3%  26.4%           29.7% 

Reasonable  estimate 41 .3%       62.1%  41 .7%          32.9% 

Unreasonable  estimate 9.2%       19-5%  18.7%           13-2% 

The  question  numbered  1 1  (a),  which  was  given  in  the  June 
test  only,  "  Have  you  thought  over  any  occupation  and  then 
decided  not  to  take  it  up  ?  "  received  the  following  replies : 

Instructed     Uninstructed 

Thought  over  and  rejected  no  occupation 23.0%  54-9% 

Thought  over  and  rejected  one  occupation 25.3%  4°-7% 

Thought  over  and  rejected  two  occupations J9-S%  2.2% 

Thought  over  and  rejected  three  occupations    ....  9.2% 

Thought  over  and  rejected  four  occupations 8.1% 

Thought  over  and  rejected  five  occupations 3.4%  2.2% 

Thought  over  no  occupation  and  held  to  first  choice     .  11.5%  42.8% 


280  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  answers  to  question  1 1  (b}y  "  What  are  the  reasons  why 
you  decided  not  to  take  it  up  ?  "  distributed  themselves  thus  : 

Instructed  Uninstructed 

Intelligent  reasons  given  by 67.8%  154% 

Unintelligent  reasons  given  by 13-8%  7.7% 

No  reason  given  by 6.9%  34-1% 

Thought  over  no  occupation,  but  held  to  first  choice     .    11.5%  42-8% 

That  the  instructed  classes  show  in  June  a  substantial  growth  in 
intelligence  regarding  occupations  in  general,  and  their  own  voca- 
tional futures  in  particular,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  There  is  indi- 
cation of  an  awakened  vocational  vision  in  some,  in  others  tenacity 
of  purpose.  There  is  evidence  that  practically  all  have  been  helped 
in  some  degree  to  a  better  understanding  of  the  qualifications  which 
the  worker  must  bring  to  his  task,  the  conditions  which  are  peculiar 
to  it,  the  education  which  will  best  train  for  it,  the  elements  which 
make  for  success  in  it,  and  its  comparative  desirability.  This  is  the 
more  significant  when  the  meagerness  of  the  time  spent  in  actual 
instruction  is  taken  into  account.  The  uninstructed  classes  indi- 
cate, in  general,  a  deterioration  rather  than  a  growth  of  interest  and 
intelligence  in  their  vocational  aims.  While  growth  without  instruc- 
tion was  hardly  to  be  looked  for,  deterioration  is  not  difficult  to 
explain  to  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  conditions  which  are  likely 
to  obtain  in  graduating  classes  during  the  last  days  of  a  school  year. 

A  general  description  of  the  instructed  children  and  a  brief 
account  of  some  of  the  experiences  of  the  teacher  who  conducted 
the  investigation  may  be  of  interest. 

The  children  live  in  a  district  in  Roxbury,  where  most  of  the 
houses  are  flats.  The  majority  are  of  Irish  or  Irish- American  par- 
entage. There  are  perhaps  eight  per  cent  Jews  and  Italians.  The 
fathers  are  teamsters,  motormen,  carpenters,  ironworkers,  laborers, 
piano-factory  employees,  etc.  The  children  come  to  school  clean 
and  neatly  dressed.  They  are  of  the  average  capacity  that  might 
be  expected  from  such  environment ;  it  is  to  be  doubted  if  an  expert 
would  select  from  among  them  any  that  are  either  supernormal  or 
subnormal.  With  a  few  exceptions,  there  seems  to  have  been  evi- 
denced among  them  no  very  great  interest  in  books  or  reading 
and  no  very  pronounced  aptitudes. 


A  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS          281 

Throughout  the  series  of  lessons  on  occupations  they  displayed 
much  interest.  Many  showed  an  unexpected  knowledge  of  hours, 
wages,  health  conditions,  and  the  desirable  and  undesirable  features 
of  certain  kinds  of  work.  The  active  part  taken  in  the  lessons  by 
the  older  and  commonly  considered  duller  children  was  especially 
noticeable. 

In  June,  1914,  the  year  following  the  graduation  from  grammar 
school  of  these  pupils,  a  questionnaire  was  sent  to  .each  child  who 
had  taken  the  March  and  June  tests.  These  are  the  questions 
asked  of  the  children  who  were  at  school : 

1 .  Do  you  remember  answering  some  questions  last  year  about  the  kind 
of  work  you  would  like  to  do  when  you  were  through  going  to  school  ? 

2.  What  occupation  did  you  then  say  you  were  going  to  take  up  ? 

3.  Have  you  changed  your  mind  about  the  kind  of  work  you  would  like 
to  do? 

4.  If  you  have  changed  your  mind,  what  do  you  now  think  you  would 
like  to  do? 

5.  If  you  have  changed  your  mind,  what  were  your  reasons  for  doing  so? 

6.  What  school  are  you  attending  now  ? 

7.  What  courses  are  you  taking? 

8.  Do  you  think  that  what  you  are  studying  now  will  help  you  in  the  work 
you  have  chosen  ? 

The  first  five  above  questions  were  also  asked  of  the  children 
who  had  gone  to  work,  and  the  following  questions  were  added : 

6.  Give  the  names  and  addresses  of  the  places  where  you  have  worked. 

7.  Where  are  you  working  now? 

8.  What  kind  of  work  do  you  do? 

9.  Do  you  like  your  work  ? 

ro.  What  pay  did  you  get  at  first? 

1 1 .  What  pay  do  you  get  now  ? 

1 2.  What  are  the  chances  for  promotion  ? 

13.  Do  you  go  to  evening  school? 

14.  How  do  you  think  what  you  are  learning  there  will  help  you  with 
your  work? 

Answers  were  received  from  seventy-six  of  the  instructed  chil- 
dren and  from  sixty-three  of  the  uninstructed.  As  fifteen  of  the 
first  group  were  children  who  had  failed  of  graduation  and  were 
still  in  the  grammar  school,  it  was  thought  well  not  to  include 
them  in  the  comparisons  which  follow. 


282 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


To  question  i,  "Do  you  remember  answering  some  questions 
last  year  about  the  kind  of  work  you  would  like  to  do  when  you 
were  through  going  to  school  ?  "  all  but  one,  an  instructed  girl, 
replied  in  the  affirmative.  Eighty-five  and  two-tenths  per  cent  of 
the  instructed  children  and  82.5  per  cent  of  the  uninstructed 
answered  correctly  question  2,  "What  occupation  did  you  then 
say  you  were  going  to  take  up  ?  " 

The  percentages  of  those  going  into  the  different  groups  of 
occupations  and  the  various  changes  may  be  seen  in  the  following 
table: 

MARCH,  1913 
, Instructed- 


PERCENTAGES  OF 

/—$ 

Jo.—  -N 

,  —  ' 

%  —  * 

/—  ! 

Jo.-^, 

r-f 

%  —  ^ 

THOSE  GOING  INTO              No. 

% 

B 

G 

B 

G 

No. 

% 

B 

G 

B 

G 

Professions  .    .    .10 

16.4 

5 

5 

8.2 

8.2 

12 

19.0 

4 

8 

6-3 

12.7 

Teachers  ...     6 

9-8 

i 

5' 

1.6 

8.2 

8 

12.7 

o 

8 

0 

12.7 

Civil  service     .    .     i 

1.6 

i 

o 

1.6 

0 

3 

4.8 

3 

0 

4.8 

o 

Business  ....     3 

4-9 

3 

o 

4.9 

o 

3 

4-8 

2 

i 

3-2 

1.6 

Commercial      .    .16 

26.2 

2 

14 

3-3 

22.9 

21 

33-3 

I 

20 

1.6 

31.7 

Stenographers  .     9 

14.8 

O 

9 

o 

14.8 

8 

12.7 

O 

8 

o 

12.7 

Bookkeepers     .     4 

6-5 

I 

3 

1.6 

5-9 

5 

7-9 

O 

5 

0 

7-9 

Trades      .    .    .    .11 

18.0 

8 

3 

13.1 

4-9 

7 

n.  i 

7 

o 

II.  I 

o 

Don't  know  .    .    .17 

27.9 

8 

9 

i3-i 

14.8 

10 

15.9 

4 

6 

6.4 

9-5 

Miscellaneous  .    .     3 

4-9 

i 

2 

1.6 

3-3 

7 

n.  i 

o 

7 

0 

n.  i 

Nurse   .    .    .    .    o 

0 

0 

0 

o 

0 

i 

1.6 

o 

i 

o 

1.6 

Tel.  operator    .     2 

3-3 

o 

2 

o 

3-3 

i 

1.6 

0 

i 

0 

1.6 

Proofreader  .    .     o 

0 

o 

O 

0 

o 

i 

1.6 

o 

i 

o 

1.6 

Soldier      .    .    .     i 

1.6 

I 

O 

1.6 

o 

o 

o 

o 

0 

0 

0 

Hairdresser  .    .     o 

o 

0 

0 

0 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

Music  teacher  .    .     o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

3 

4.8 

0 

3 

o 

4.8 

Private  sec'y     .     o 

o 

0 

o 

0 

0 

0 

0 

o 

o 

0 

o 

Factory     .    .    .     o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

Dancer      .    .    .     o 

o 

o 

o 

0 

o 

o 

0 

0 

0 

o 

o 

Mov.  pict.  actress  o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

I 

1.6 

o 

I 

o 

1.6 

Artist    ....     o 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

JUNE,  1913 
-Instructed- 


Uninstructed 


PERCENTAGES  OF 

r-b 

io.—  » 

,  —  < 

%  —  \ 

/—  N 

0.—  N 

< 

%  V 

THOSE  GOING  INTO 

No. 

% 

B 

G 

B 

G      No. 

% 

B 

G 

B 

G 

Professions  .    . 

•  '3 

21-3 

5 

8 

8.2 

13.2       4 

6.4 

O 

4 

O 

6.4 

Teachers  .    . 

•    9 

14.8 

i 

8 

1.6 

13.2       4 

6.4 

o 

4 

o 

6.4 

Civil  service     . 

.     i 

1.6 

i 

o 

1.6 

O          I 

1.6 

I 

0 

1.6 

o 

Business 


9     14.8      8       i     13.2       1.6 


6.4 


3-2       3-2 


A  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS          283 


Commercial      .    .16 

26.2 

0 

16 

0 

26.2 

23 

36.5 

2 

21 

3-2 

33-3 

Stenographers  .   10 

16.4 

o 

IO 

o 

15-4 

IO 

15-9 

0 

IO 

O 

15.9 

Bookkeepers    .     4 

6-5 

o 

4 

o 

6.5 

5 

7-9 

0 

5 

o 

7-9 

Trades      .    .    .    .16 

26.2 

12 

4 

19.7 

6.5 

9 

14-3 

8 

I 

12.7 

1.6 

Don't  know  ...     4 

6.6 

2 

2 

3-3 

3-3 

1  2 

19.0 

8 

4 

12.7 

6-3 

Miscellaneous  .    .     2 

3-2 

O 

2 

o 

3-2 

IO 

15.9 

o 

IO 

o 

15.9 

Nurse    .    .    .    .     i 

1.6 

O 

I 

o 

1.6 

I 

1.6 

o 

I 

o 

1.6 

Tel.  operator    .     i 

1.6 

O 

I 

0 

1.6 

I 

1.6 

o 

I 

o 

1.6 

Proofreader  .    .     o 

o 

O 

0 

o 

o 

I 

1.6 

o 

I 

o 

1.6 

Soldier      .    .    .     o 

o 

0 

O 

o 

o 

I 

1.6 

o 

I 

o 

1.6 

Hairdresser  .    .    o 

o 

O 

O 

0 

0 

4 

6.4 

o 

4 

o 

6.4 

Music  teacher  .     o 

o 

O 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

Private  sec'y     .     o 

o 

O 

o 

o 

o 

2 

3-2 

o 

2 

o 

3-2 

Factory     .    .    .    o 

o 

O 

o 

o 

o 

O 

0 

o 

o 

0 

o 

Dancer      .    .    .     o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

O 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

Mov.  pict.  actress  o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

Artist    ....     o 

0 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

0 

o 

o 

o 

JULY,  1914 

,  Instructed  —   s     ,  

Uninstructed  ^ 

PERCENTAGES  OF 

r- 

No.-^ 

1  

of 

7o  —  » 

r-J 

Io.-^ 

/  

%  —  » 

THOSE  GOING  INTO              No. 

% 

B 

G 

B 

G 

No. 

% 

B 

G 

B 

G 

Professions  .    .    .10 

16.4 

3 

7 

4-9 

11.5 

5 

7-9 

2 

3 

3-1 

4.8 

Teachers  ...     8 

I3-1 

i 

7 

1.6 

11.5 

3 

4.8 

O 

3 

o 

4.8 

Civil  service     .    .     2 

3-2 

2 

o 

3-2 

o 

3 

4.8 

3 

o 

4.8 

o 

Business  .    .    .    .   10 

16.4 

9 

I 

14.8 

1.6 

3 

4.8 

i 

2 

1.6 

3-2 

Commercial      .    .18 

29-5 

2 

16 

3-3 

26.2 

3° 

47.6 

2 

28 

3-2 

44.4 

Stenographers.  10 

16.4 

O 

IO 

o 

16.4 

15 

23.8 

2 

'3 

3-2 

2O.6 

Bookkeepers     .     8 

13-1 

2 

6 

3-2 

9-9 

u 

'7-5 

O 

II 

o 

17-5 

Trades      .    .    .    .   18 

29.5 

II 

7 

1  8.0 

11.5 

12 

19.1 

I  I 

I 

'7-5 

1.6 

Don't  know  .    .    .     i 

1.6 

I 

o 

1.6 

o 

2 

3-2 

I 

I 

1.6 

1.6 

Miscellaneous  .    .     2 

3-2 

O 

2 

o 

3-2 

8 

12.6 

I 

7 

1.6 

I  I.O 

Nurse    .    .    .    .     o 

o 

O 

O 

o 

o 

i 

1.6 

O 

i 

o 

1.6 

Tel.  operator    .     o 

.     o 

0 

O 

o 

o 

i 

1.6 

o 

i 

o 

1.6 

Proofreader  .    .     o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

Soldier      .    .    .     o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

0 

o 

o 

o 

Hairdresser  .    .     o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

Music  teacher  .     o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

0 

o 

Private  sec'y     .     o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

I 

1.6 

o 

I 

o 

1.6 

Factory     .    .    .     i 

1.6 

o 

I 

o 

1.6 

2 

3-2 

0 

2 

o 

3-2 

Dancer     .    .    .     o 

o 

o 

0 

o 

o 

2 

3-2 

o 

2 

o 

3-2 

Mov.  pict.  actress  i 

1.6 

o 

I 

o 

1.6 

O 

o 

o 

O 

o 

o 

Artist    .    .    .    .     o 

o 

o 

0 

o 

o 

I 

1.6 

I 

O 

I 

1.6 

There  were  found  to  be  sixty-one  different  kinds  of  work 
selected  by  the  instructed  classes  and  sixty-three  kinds  by  the 
uninstructed.  Twenty-four  and  five-tenths  per  cent  of  the  first 


284  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

group  and  23.8  per  cent  of  the  second  held  to  the  occupation 
which  they  had  given  as  their  choice  in  the  first  test.  Of  all  the 
children  who  were  questioned,  only  one,  a  girl  of  the  uninstructed 
group,  replied  to  all  three  queries  regarding  her  choice  of  occupa- 
tion that  she  had  not  decided.  Seventy-two  and  one-tenth  per 
cent  of  the  instructed  children  gave  as  their  chosen  occupations 
those  which  had  been  studied  in  the  school  lessons.  Seventy-five 
and  four-tenths  per  cent  of  the  instructed  group  and  60.3  per  cent 
of  the  uninstructed  held  to  the  occupation  which  they  had  said  in 
the  preceding  test  it  was  their  intention  to  take  up.  Of  the  first 
group  whose  occupational  choice  had  changed,  9.8  per  cent  had 
evidently  forgotten  what  occupation  they  had  given  in  June,  1913, 
as  their  preference.  Of  the  uninstructed,  there  were  22.2  per  cent 
who  had  also  apparently  no  correct  recollection  of  their  previous 
written  choice. 

Six  and  five-tenths  per  cent  of  the  instructed  children  and 
14.2  per  cent  of  the  uninstructed  children  gave  no  reason  in 
answer  to  question  6,  "If  you  have  changed  your  mind,  what 
were  your  reasons  for  doing  so  ?  "  The  following  are  the  changes 
of  occupation  in  the  instructed  group  and  the  reasons  which 
they  gave : 

No.  1 8.  Girl  changed  from  cooking  teacher  to  stenographer. 
Reason :  "  Because  I  had  not  fully  decided  what  I  was  going 
to  do." 

No.  2 1 .  Boy  changed  from  civil  engineer,  to  lawyer.  Reason  : 
"  I  think  I  will  like  it  better.  My  brother  has  changed,  and  I 
desire  to  be  the  same  as  he." 

No.  35.  Boy  who  gave  as  his  choice  "civil  engineer"  and  is 
now  an  errand  boy  in  a  printing  office  and  would  like  to  be  a 
printer.  Reason  :  "  My  father  died,  and  I  could  not  go  to  school 
any  longer." 

No.  47.  Girl  changed  from  stenography  to  school-teacher. 
Reason :  "  I  thought  a  position  as  a  school-teacher  was  much 
better  than  a  position  as  a  stenographer." 

No.  5 1 .  Girl  changed  from  teacher  to  secretary.  Reason  : 
"  My  parents  thought  I  would  have  a  better  chance  if  I  should 
take  up  this  work." 


A  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS          285 

No.  53.  Girl  changed  from  telephone  operator  to  dressmaker. 
Reason  :  "  It  is  too  long  to  wait  to  be  a  telephone  operator,  as  I 
am  only  14  and  you  have  to  wait  to  be  17." 

No.  56.  Girl  changed  from  stenographer  to  salesgirl.  Reason  : 
"  I  like  it  better  than  going  to  school." 

No.  68.  Boy  changed  from  cabinetmaker  to  "  I  do  not  know." 
Reason  :  "I  was  advised." 

No.  88.  Boy  who  gave  as  his  choice  "machinist"  is  now 
"  delivering  orders  on  a  peddling  wagon,"  and  "  would  like  to  get 
an  office  position  and  work  myself  up  to  a  bookkeeper  or  some- 
thing better."  Reason  for  change  :  "  When  I  left  school  I  had  to 
take  the  first  thing  that  came  along  to  help  my  mother  along." 

No.  89.  Boy  changed  from  soldier  to  electrician.  Reason : 
"  Because  then  I  had  wrong  ideas  of  what  army  life  was ;  now 
I  know  better." 

The  following  are  the  changes  and  the  reasons  given  by  the 
uninstructed  group  : 

No.  153.  Boy  changed  from  traveling  salesman  to  chauffeur. 
Reason  :  "  More  money." 

No.  156.  Girl  changed  from  stenographer  to  trained  nurse. 
Reason :  "I  would  rather  do  something  to  help  others  and  that 
war  has  appealed  to  me." 

No.  164.  Girl  changed  from  music  teacher  to  typewriter  or 
stenographer.  Reason  :  "  I  like  typewriting  so  I  thought  I  would  be 
a  typewriter,  and  if  I  like  stenography,  I  might  be  a  stenographer." 

No.  172.  Boy  changed  from  grocery  business  to  automobile 
painting.  Reason  :  "  Didn't  like  business." 

No.  179.  Boy  changed  from  electrical  work  to  "  I  would  like 
to  get  a  job  in  an  automobile  place  learn  how  to  repair  and  run  a 
car."  Reason  :  "  Because  automobiling  is  the  becoming  thing,  to 
repair  and  run  cars." 

No.  181.  Girl  changed  from  music  teacher  to  dressmaker. 
Reason  :  "I  have  gone  to  a  school  where  I  have  learned  dress- 
making and  have  liked  it  better  than  music." 

No.  185.  Girl  changed  from  typewriter  to  factory  work. 
Reason  :  "  A  lady  spoke  for  me  in  the  Edison  Light  and  I  am 
waiting  to  receive  word  from  them." 


286  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

No.  207.  Girl  changed  from  school-teacher  to  bookkeeper. 
Reason  :  "  I  thought  that  there  would  be  a  better  chance  for 
promotion  and  for  higher  wages." 

No.  215.  Boy  now  working  in  a  dental  laboratory  changed 
from  "  some  office  work  "  to  "be  skilled  in  teeth  which  is  a  trade 
under  the  name  of  Mechanical  Dentistry."  Reason  :  "I  wanted 
to  learn  this  trade." 

No.  224.  Girl  now  working  as  cashier  in  a  dry-goods  store 
changed  from  bookkeeper  to  "undecided."  Reason:  "Didn't 
care  for  school." 

No.  232.  Boy  changed  from  bookkeeper  to  engineer.  Reason  : 
"  I  think  it  is  better." 

No.  244.  Girl  changed  from  teacher  to  "  I  would  like  to  work 
in  a  department  store."  Reason  :  "  Because  I  knew  I  could  not 
afford  to  go  to  school  all  that  time." 

No.  252.  Girl  changed  from  music  teacher  to  stenographer. 
Reason  :  "  I  haven't  changed  my  mine." 

No.  265.  Girl  changed  from  stenographer  to  bookkeeper. 
Reason  :  "I  liked  it  better." 

No.  268.  Boy  changed  from  machinist  to  printer.  Reason  : 
"  I  had  to  take  both  machine-shop  work  and  printing,  and  I  liked 
the  printing  best." 

No.  275.  Girl  changed  from  teaching  to  commercial  work. 
Reason  :  "  Decided  not  to  teach." 

The  answers  to  questions  6  and  7,  "  What  school  are  you  attend- 
ing now  ?  "  and  "  What  courses  are  you  taking  ?  "  brought  out  the 
information  that  72.1  per  cent  of  the  instructed  and  65.1  per  cent 
of  the  uninstructed  group  were  attending  some  high  school.  All  of 
the  first  group  were  on  the  school  road  which  will  lead  most  directly 
to  their  chosen  occupation.  Three  and  two-tenths  per  cent  of  the 
uninstructed  were  not  headed  in  the  best  way  educationally. 

It  was  found  that  27.9  per  cent  of  the  instructed  children  and 
36.5  per  cent  of  the  uninstructed  were  at  work  in  June,  1914.  Of 
these,  13.1  per  cent  and  9.5  per  cent  were  engaged  in  occupations 
which  would  help  to  fit  them  for  the  kind  of  work  which  they  had 
indicated  they  were  eventually  to  take  up.  Eight  and  two-tenths 
per  cent  of  the  first  group  and  22.3  per  cent  of  the  second  were 


A  STUDY  OF  GRAMMAR-SCHOOL  PUPILS          287 

not  engaged  in  occupations  which  would  train  them  in  any  direct 
sense  for  the  life  work  which  they  had  chosen.  The  remaining 
6.6  per  cent  of  the  first  group  and  6.3  per  cent  of  the  second 
were  classified  as  doubtful  cases. 

The  classes  with  whom  the  investigation  was  conducted  are 
typical  of  many  thousands  of  groups  of  children  throughout  our 
land.  The  conclusions  which  the  study  warrants  are  therefore 
widely  applicable.  There  are  sufficient  data  to  indicate  that  chil- 
dren about  to  be  graduated  from  our  grammar  schools  are  deeply 
interested  in  the  work  of  the  world.  The  vast  majority  of  them 
are  evidently  capable  of  visualizing  for  themselves  an  occupational 
future.  They  lack  neither  comprehension  nor  vision.  What  they 
do  lack  is  definite,  systematic,  expository  instruction  in  vocational 
opportunity,  and  inspiration  and  direction  as  how  to  discover  their 
own  talents  and  limitations.  Clearly  the  way  to  place  opportunity 
to  do  this  before  the  great  masses  of  our  children  is  to  give  occu- 
pational study  a  definite  place  on  our  seventh-  and  eighth-grade 
grammar-school  program.  The  objection  that  we  have  no  reliable 
information  to  give  is  rapidly  losing  weight.  Such  studies  as  those 
which  are  now  being  made  in  Buffalo,  Dr.  Ayres's  very  recent  valu- 
able classification  of  constant  occupations  under  the  Russell  Sage 
Foundation,  the  Chicago,  Minneapolis,  Cincinnati,  and  Cleveland 
studies,  the  contributions  of  the  Boston  Vocation  Bureau  and  of 
the  Women's  Industrial  Union,  furnish  ample  material  for  the 
foundation  of  a  grammar-school  course  in  occupational  study.  The 
elementary  school  can  render  no  more  valuable  service  to  society 
than  to  take  this  means  of  awakening  in  the  minds  of  its  graduates 
a  life-career  motive. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

(Extracts  from  the  Report  of  the  Committee  on  High  Schools  and  Training 
Schools,  Board  of  Education,  New  York,  1914) 

No  problem  that  is  before  the  public-school  system  deserves 
more  careful  consideration  than  that  of  vocational  guidance.  In 
order  to  ascertain  definite  facts  based  upon  scientific  opinions,  your 
subcommittee  based  its  hearings  upon  the  following  questions  : 

(1)  What  is  the  definition  of  vocational  guidance,  its  nature  and  purpose? 

(2)  Into  what  employments  or  types  of  work  do  the  boys  and  girls  of  our 
high  schools  enter,  either  upon  dropping  from  school  or  upon  graduation  ? 

(3)  How  adequate  are  the  present  high-school  courses  in  relation  to  the 
employment  into  which  boys  and  girls  enter? 

(4)  At  what  period  of  the  school  work  should  vocational  guidance  be  begun  ? 

(5)  What  is  the  relation  of  vocational  guidance  to  elementary  schools? 

(6)  What  are  to  be  the  methods  of  discovering  the  capacity  and  aptitudes 
of  school  children? 

(7)  What  methods  and  agencies  exist  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  vocational 
guidance  through  further  training  ? 

(8)  What  agencies  exist  for  the  distribution  of  school  children  with  a  view 
to  their  securing  the  training  made  necessary  through  vocational  guidance  ? 

(9)  What  methods  shall  be  pursued  to  prevent  the  possible  exploitation 
of  children? 

(10)  What  is  the  value  and  effect  of  vocational  scholarships? 
(n)  What  shall  be  the  relation  of  vocational   guidance  to  employment 
agencies  ? 

Wherefore,  as  far  as  may  be  possible,  a  similar  order  will  be  fol- 
lowed in  presenting  our  report. 

(i)  What  is  the  definition  of  vocational  guidance,  its  nature 
and  purpose  ? 

According  to  the  new  Standard  Dictionary  a  vocation  is  "  any 
occupation  or  pursuit  for  which  one  qualifies  one's  self,  or  to  which 
one  devotes  one's  time  or  life  ;  a  calling."  The  exact  adaptation 
of  this  definition  is  not  wholly  possible  in  the  light  of  present 
educational  tendencies. 

288 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  289 

In  the  twenty-fifth  annual  report  of  the  United  States  Com- 
missioner of  Labor,  it  is  stated  that  vocational  guidance  does  not 
mean  selecting  a  pursuit  for  a  child  nor  finding  a  place  for  him.  It 
means  rather  leading  him  and  his  parents  to  consider  the  matter 
themselves,  to  study  the  child's  tastes  and  possibilities,  to  decide 
for  what  he  is  best  fitted,  and  to  take  definite  steps  toward  securing 
for  him  the  necessary  preparation  or  training. 

The  Vocational  Guidance  Association  of  New  York  City  pre- 
sents, as  its  definition  :  "  Vocational  guidance  is  the  selection  of 
the  means  for  giving  each  boy  and  girl  the  training  and  the  oppor- 
tunity for  doing  that  work  for  which  each  is  best  fitted  by  ability 
and  inclination." 

The  aim  of  vocational  guidance  is  to  secure  an  increase  in  effi- 
ciency in  the  various  occupations,  together  with  an  elimination  of 
the  social  wastage  due  to  the  maladjustment  of  workers  in  unsuit- 
able occupations  ;  to  decrease  the  number  of  inadequately  prepared 
workers  ;  and  to  lessen  unemployment  in  so  far  as  it  may  be  due 
to  a  failure  of  the  schools  to  supply  the  types  of  workers  who  are 
in  demand.  The  aim  of  vocational  guidance,  however,  should  hold 
in  the  forefront  the  necessity  of  a  broad  culture,  together  with  a 
diversified  industrial  experience,  as  the  fundamental  basis  of  pre- 
paring school  children  for  life. 

In  order  to  accomplish  the  preparation  of  school  children  three 
steps  are  essential  : 

(i)  _A  vocational  . 


of  industries  to  ascertain  what  specific  abilities  and  training  are 
needed  in  each  of  them,  together  with  the  industrial  opportuni- 
ties which  they  afford  and  the  fundamental  processes  which  may 
possess  an  educational  value. 

(2)  Vocational  analysis  must  be  considered  in  so  far  as  it  in- 
volves the  capacities,  characteristics,  and  familiar  tendencies  of 
children,  that  there  may  be  an  adequate  personal  basis  in  guiding 
the  education  of  the  children. 

(3)  Vocational  education  to  such  a  degree  as  will  provide  for  a 
readjustment  of  school  work  that  will  enrich  the  curriculum  or 
offer  new  courses  such  as  may  be  shown  to  be  necessary  as  a 
result  of  the  vocational  survey. 


290  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Vocational  guidance  can  only  be  of  service  in  so  far  as  it  is 
based  upon  a  practical  study  of  industrial  life.  In  the  language  of 
Professor  Mead,  of  The  University  of  Chicago  : 

It  is  at  the  meeting  point  of  training  and  occupation  that  the  school  can 
criticize  its  own  achievements,  and  at  the  same  time  the  life  into  which  the 
children  are  to  enter.  It  seems  to  me  of  supreme  importance,  both  to  the 
children's  training  and  to  their  own  vocations,  that  they  should  both  be  form- 
ulated in  terms  of  vocational  guidance.  [Again,]  In  vocational  guidance  the 
school  finds  its  supreme  task  as  the  conscious  educational  institution  of  a 
democracy. 

The  direct  training  of  a  child  for  a  particular  calling  may  not 
necessarily  advance  the  best  interests  of  the  boy  or  girl  and  may, 
to  some  extent,  interfere  with  his  future  development.  Industry 
itself  provides  in  many  lines  opportunities  for  direct  education 
within  the  trade.  The  general  attitude  of  employers,  however,  is 
that  boys  and  girls  should  receive  in  school  particular  preparation 
for  their  particular  employments,  which  is  obviously  impracticable 
as  well  as  undesirable.  Vocational  guidance  must  be  considered 
essentially  from  the  standpoint  of  the  standards  of  an  educational 
system,  and  the  expenditure  of  all  moneys  for  vocational  guidance 
should  be  viewed  in  the  light  of  its  educational  return. 

The  clash  between  the  view  of  the  manufacturer  and  that  of  the 
educator  is  well  illustrated  in  the  words  of  Mr.  George  Elwell : 

It  is  not  the  aim  of  the  manufacturer  to  provide  opportunity  for  more  in- 
dustrial education  for  his  workers.  As  a  manufacturer  I  desire  that  the  boy 
who  goes  into  the  shop  should  learn  one  process  and  be  content  to  stick  to 
that  to  the  end.  Of  course,  as  president  of  the  board  of  education  I  have  to 
proclaim  higher  ideals. 

Vocational  guidance  from  the  educator's  standpoint  must  not 
concede  too  much  to  the  employer.  In  the  words  of  Mr.  Lovejoy : 

Business  assumes  that  its  jobs  are  fixed  and  eternal,  and  it  demands  of 
education  that  the  latter  fit  the  children  to  the  jobs.  A  proper  rejoinder  on 
the  part  of  educators  would  be,  "  Here  are  our  children  ;  what  kind  of  industry 
have  you  to  offer  ?  " 

Let  us  insist  that  the  child's  future  usefulness,  not  the  present  balance 
sheet,  shall  be  the  measure  of  the  success  of  this  guidance  into  vocations,  and 
let  us  resist  every  scheme  to  make  the  labor  of  your  children  a  makeshift  to 
maintain  themselves  or  their  families. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  291 

At  the  present  time  the  entire  subject  of  vocational  guidance  is  in 
its  incipient  stage,  and  the  final  policies  cannot  be  adopted  for  many 
years  to  come.  The  views  that  are  laid  down  in  the  Hanus  Report 
deserve  consideration,  and  we  find  in  the  "  Report  as  a  Whole  "  : 

Public  education  should  direct  each  pupil's  attention  to  a  vocation  to  which 
he  may  reasonably  aspire ;  that  is,  every  pupil  should  be  led  gradually  to 
realize  that  a  suitable  vocation,  accessible  to  him  and  adapted  to  him,  is  indis- 
pensable to  a  useful  and  happy  life.  As  he  approaches  the  end  of  his  school 
career,  whatever  his  age  may  be,  he  should  come  to  see  that  his  vocation  will 
be  not  only  the  means  of  satisfying  his  personal  wants  and  ambitions,  but  be- 
cause it  is  the  chief  means  of  establishing  significant  relations  between  himself 
and  his  fellow  men,  it  is  also  the  source  of  such  public  service  as  he  is  capable 
of  and  may  be  called  upon  to  render.  Public  education  should  therefore  pro- 
vide for  the  development  of  vocational  purpose  based  on  vocational  enlighten- 
ment (vocational  guidance);  and  should  offer  each  pupil  appropriate  training 
for  the  vocation  of  his  choice. 

Strengthening  this,  Professor  Hanus  continues  : 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  here  to  emphasize  once  more  that  vocational 
guidance  does  not  mean  merely  helping  boys  and  girls  to  find  work,  but  to 
find  the  kind  of  work  they  are  best  fitted  by  nature  and  training  to  do  well.  It 
does  not  mean  prescribing  a  vocation ;  it  does  mean  bringing  to  bear  on  the 
choice  of  a  vocation  organized  information  and  organized  common  sense.  It 
should  therefore  not  only  tend  to  bring  about  a  better  adjustment  of  the  boy 
to  his  work,  but  also  point  the  way  to  more  education  for  more  efficient  work. 

Vocational  guidance  and  vocational  education  are  closely  inter- 
related, and  the  guiding  of  education  so  that  it  may  have  a  voca- 
tional bearing  is  probably  one  of  the  most  important  phases  of 
vocational  guidance.  The  function  of  vocational  guidance  is  not 
to  train  for  a  job,  but  to  afford  the  education  necessary  for  the 
efficient  fulfillment  of  the  work  in  life,  giving  equal  stress  to  the 
educational  values  which  are  to  be  derived  from  industry  and  to 
those  derived  from  the  liberal  professions.  Until  very  recently  it 
would  have  been  possible  to  say  that  the  trend  of  public  elementary- 
school  education  was  to  guide  into  law,  medicine,  or  the  ministry. 
What  may  be  borrowed  from  industry  remains  to  be  demonstrated, 
but,  as  Dr.  Leonard  P.  Ayres  has  wisely  pointed  out,  vocational 
guidance  "  must  be  prepared  to  challenge  each  industry  whether  or 
not  any  given  occupation  holds  out  the  promise  to  the  future  worker 
that  it  may  justly  ask  the  cooperation  of  the  public  schools.  .  .  . 


292  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Vocational  guidance  and  vocational  education  are  in  reality  merely 
symptoms  of  a  world-wide  movement  for  bringing  education  into 
vital  touch  with  the  needs  and  requirements  of  the  problems  of 
real  life.  I  believe  that  future  history  will  show  that  they  were 
the  beginning  of  the  most  fundamental  revolution  in  education 
since  the  Renaissance." 

In  brief,  vocational  guidance  should  be  an  educational  plan 
sufficiently  elastic  and  flexible  to  afford  the  opportunity  to  school 
children  to  find  themselves  in  terms  of  their  vocational  aptitudes. 
It  should  seek  to  devise  means  for  securing  broad  information  re- 
garding the  numerous  groups  of  industries,  together  with  the  under- 
lying processes  available  for  the  children,  and  to  ascertain,  in  so  far 
as  may  be  possible,  the  aptitudes  and  characteristics  of  school  chil- 
dren with  a  view  to  giving  them  suggestions  how  to  develop  their 
innate  powers.  In  addition,  it  should  offer  advice  as  to  the  places 
wherein  educational  advantages  may  be  secured  in  order  to  foster  the 
types  of  training  best  adapted  to  the  needs  of  individual  children. 

(2)  Into  what  employments  or  types  of  work  do  the  boys  and 
girls  of  our  high  schools  enter,  either  upon  dropping  from  school 
or  upon  graduation  ? 

There  is  a  distinct  lack  of  definite  information  regarding  the 
nature  of  employments  or  types  of  work  into  which  the  boys  and 
girls  of  our  high  schools  enter,  either  upon  dropping  from  school 
or  upon  graduating. 

In  the  words  of  Chatfield,  in  the  last  report  of  the  Permanent 
Census  Board  : 

Probably  the  most  significant  statistics  yet  published  by  this  Board  were 
those  concerning  the  occupations  of  132,000  children  registered  in  this  office. 
The  casual  nature  of  this  employment  and  its  lack  of  opportunity  for  training 
and  development  again  emphasized  the  need  for  changes  in  elementary  edu- 
cation which  would  give  greater  promise  of  a  fair  measure  of  economic  inde- 
pendence to  the  average  individual  than  is  now  the  case. 

The  fact  that  the  types  of  occupations  are  not  highly  remunera- 
tive and  require  comparatively  little  skill,  or  indeed  are  "blind-alley" 
occupations,  is  emphasized  by  the  statements  of  Mr.  Chatfield : 

The  statistics  concerning  workers  14-18  years  of  age  gathered  by  the  Per- 
manent Census  Board  likewise  emphasize  the  necessity  for  more  complete  and 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


293 


detailed  information  if  the  vocational  problem  is  to  be  attacked  in  any  com- 
prehensive way.  It  is  true  that  these  statistics  do  not  include  the  whole  body 
of  workers  between  these  ages.  Many  parents,  fearing  that  information  given 
concerning  working  children  would  be  used  to  their  detriment,  withheld  the 
facts  desired  concerning  such  children.  In  the  various  classifications  repre- 
sented, however,  131,972  children  are  employed,  and  there  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  the  character  or  proportions  of  these  classifications  would  be 
greatly  changed  by  the  addition  of  the  number  not  enumerated.  The  131,972 
workers  are  almost  equally  divided  as  to  sex  and  age —  66,620  being  boys  and 
65,252  girls.  Between  14  and  16  years  of  age  there  are  23,864  boys  and 
24,215  girls;  between  16  and  18  years,  42,756  are  boys  and  41,057  are  girls, 
this  last  group  being  nearly  twice  as  numerous  as  that  made  up  of  the  most 
mature  pupils.  The  occupations  most  numerously  represented  are  shown 
in  the  table : 


14-16 

16-18 

TOTAL 

GRAND 
TOTAL 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Boys 

Girls 

Housework     
Errand  boys  and  girls     .    . 
Clerks     

I 
6366 
2122 

3551 
1807 

367 

33' 
i?93 

"5 

20  1 

877 
1117 

364 
107 

J3 
33 
6 

433 
59 
57 

73 
251 
278 
159 

8693 
66  1 

795 
667 

577 
1236 

M53 
34 
563 
605 

47i 
156 
388 

222 
60S 
587 

551 
421 

436 

223 
228 
354 

9 

88 

I 
6163 

7023 
4442 
3J44 
859 

727 

2053 
47i 
1088 
1440 

1358 
1003 
717 

32 
90 
ii 
920 
161 
204 
192 
853 
75i 
613 

9583 
56l 
2191 
1109 

793 
2380 
2106 

73 
2681 
1823 
898 

79 
863 
1142 

1384 
1105 
1050 
919 
984 

844 
645 
495 

36 
178 

2 
12,529 
9.145 
7.993 
4,951 
1,226 
1,058 
3,846 
586 
1,289 

2,3!7 

2,475 
1,367 
824 

45 
123 

17 
',353 

220 
261 
265 
1,103 
1,029 
772 

18,276 

2,986 
!,776 
i,370 
3,6i6 

3,559 
107 

3,244 
2,428 

I>369 

235 
1,251 

1,364 
1,989 
1,692 
i,  60  1 
i,340 
1,420 

1,067 
873 
849 

45 
266 

18,278 

'3,751 
12,131 
9,769 
6,321 
4,842 
4,617 

3-953 
3,830 
3,717 
3,616 
2,780 
2,618 
2,188 
1,991 
1,692 
1,646 
1,463 
1,437 
i,353 
1,287 

i,i34 
1,114 
1,103 
1,074 
1,038 

Office  boys  and  girls  .     .    . 
Helpers  

Machine  operators      .    .     . 
Packers  and  wrappers    .    . 
Idle     

Stenographers  and  typists 
Salesmen  and  saleswomen 
Not  known     

Messengers    

Stock  boys  and  girls  .    .    . 
Bookkeepers  

Dressmakers  

Seamstresses      .              .     . 

Feather  workers     .... 
Shirt  and  waist  workers 
Millinery     

\Vagon  boys  

Telephone  operators      .    . 
Outer-clothing  workers 
Paper-box  makers  .... 
Drivers        

Tailors    

108,744 

294  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

While  it  would  no  doubt  be  difficult  to  classify  these  occupations  strictly  as 
skilled,  partly  skilled,  or  unskilled,  it  is  plainly  evident  that  with  a  few  notable 
exceptions  no  highly  remunerative  occupations  are  represented  and  very  few 
indeed  which  would  provide  a  competence  in  the  future  or  the  skill  and  ex- 
perience that  make  the  taking  up  of  more  skilled  work  natural  and  easy. 
Rather  will  be  noticed  the  prevalence  of  "  blind-alley  "  occupations,  such  as 
errand  boys  and  girls,  office  boys  and  girls,  packers  and  wrappers,  messengers, 
stock  boys  and  girls,  wagon  boys,  telephone  operators,  paper-box  makers, 
drivers,  and  without  doubt  a  large  proportion  of  those  included  in  such  occu- 
pations as  housework,  clerks,  salesmen  and  saleswomen,  and  others. 

That  the  problem  of  vocational  guidance  as  far  as  occupation  is 
concerned  is  not  acute  in  all  high  schools  is  evidenced  by  the 
statements  of  Mr.  Denbigh  and  Mr.  Larkins: 

MORRIS  HIGH  SCHOOL 

In  January,  1911,  of  141  graduates,  120  went  to  higher  institutions 
In  June,  1911,  of  211  graduates,  152  went  to  higher  institutions 
In  January,  1912,  of  154  graduates,  93  went  to  higher  institutions 
In  June,  1912,  of  253  graduates,  184  went  to  higher  institutions 
In  June,  1913,  of  183  graduates,  107  went  to  higher  institutions 

The  children  who  drop  out  earlier  than  that  undoubtedly  go  into  positions 
where  unskilled  work  only  can  be  procured.  We  cannot  place  those  with  any 
certainty,  —  the  unskilled  and  the  children  who  have  not  graduated,  —  which, 
of  course,  bears  out  the  statement  made  here  to-night,  that  we  ought  to  keep 
those  children  just  as  long  as  we  can ;  but  that  does  not  touch  the  statement 
that  there  are  vast  numbers  of  children  who  must  leave  and  who  ought  to  be 
taken  care  of. 

In  the  Manual  Training  High  School  in  1911  there  were  graduated  237 
graduates,  of  which  197  went  to  higher  institutions.  The  following  year,  with 
a  few  more  students  graduated,  there  were  between  45  and  55  who  did  not  go 
to  some  higher  institutions. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  scattered  material  on  the  subject  of 
employments  entered  into  by  boys  and  girls  who  leave  school 
between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen.  The  collection  and 
correlation  of  such  facts  represent  one  of  the  basic  needs  of  our 
educational  system.  Some  striking  figures  are  evidenced  in  the 
report  of  Miss  Mary  Van  Kleeck,  of  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation, 
who  made  a  study  of  1 3,000  girls  attending  the  evening  schools. 

One  thousand  seven  hundred  of  these  13,000  had  attended  high  schools 
in  the  city.  Of  these  in  professional  service,  72.2  per  cent  were  high-school 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  295 

graduates;  in  manufacturing  and  mechanical  pursuits  .2  of  I  per  cent  were 
high-school  graduates.  Among  the  factory  girls  a  majority  —  55.1  per  cent — 
left  school  while  in  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  grades,  while  in  trade  and 
transportation  a  large  proportion,  75.8  per  cent,  finished  the  elementary  course. 
In  office  work  and  department  stores  27.8  per  cent  went  to  high  school,  only 
2.1  per  cent  graduating,  however.  We  find  that  the  girl  who  leaves  school  in 
the  fifth,  sixth,  or  seventh  grade  will  go  into  some  manufacturing  or  mechanical 
pursuit  and  that  there  is  a  very  big  difference  as  to  the  particular  form  of  manu- 
facturing or  mechanical  pursuit  that  the  girl  is  likely  to  achieve  success  at. 
Girls  who  leave  school  earliest  and  have  gone  the  least  distance  in  school 
go  into  such  occupations  as  paper-box  manufacturing,  button  making,  candy 
manufacturing,  and  that  kind  of  work,  whereas  girls  who  go  further  in  school 
go  into  dressmaking,  etc. 

There  is  little  information  at  hand  to  show  whether  high-school 
graduates  take  the  skilled  work  and  elementary-school  pupils  the 
unskilled  work,  but  it  is  obvious  that  the  jobs  first  available  for 
children  are  most  likely  to  be  in  unskilled  labor. 

In  the  language  of  Meyer  Bloomfield : 

It  is  as  true  in  Germany  as  in  England  and  here  that  the  jobs  that  amount 
to  nothing  pay  the  highest  wages  and  attract  the  most  children.  The  problem 
of  boys  and  girls  in  unskilled  callings  is  hardly  even  considered,  despite  the 
vast  system  of  continuation  schools. 

The  experience  of  Mrs.  de  Fremery  at  the  Wadleigh  High 
School  leads  her  to  state : 

As  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  judge,  there  is  very  little  difference  in  the 
type  of  occupation  into  which  the  high  school  and  the  elementary  school  stu- 
dents go.  While  they  go  in  large  numbers  from  the  high  schools  into  the  un- 
skilled trades,  a  great  many  of  them  go  into  department  stores ;  they  have  a 
tendency  to  go  into  unskilled  office  positions  rather  than  into  the  factories. 

Considering  the  nature  of  occupations  into  which  boys  and  girls 
go  from  our  elementary  and  high  schools,  it  is  apparent  that  the 
type  of  vocational  guidance  that  is  required  is  the  type  that  will 
keep  them  in  school  for  a  longer  period  of  time,  as  well  as  the 
type  of  instruction  that  will  prepare  them  for  something  else  be- 
sides "  blind-alley "  occupations.  The  fault,  however,  does  not 
lie  entirely  within  the  educational  system.  Industry  itself  is  partly 
at  fault,  and  under  the  present  form  of  organization  it  does  not 
discriminate  sufficiently  between  the  graduates  of  high  schools  and 


296  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

of  elementary  schools,  particularly  as  regards  the  monetary  value 
of  the  services  rendered,  nor,  indeed,  are  employers  able  to  state 
the  characteristics  or  general  training  which  is  essential  for  their 
industries,  because  each  employer  is  considering  his  own  particular 
establishment  and  endeavoring  to  secure  workers  for  particular 
processes. 

(3)  How  adequate  are  the  present  high-school  courses  in  relation 
to  the  employment  into  which  boys  and  girls  enter  ? 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  exact  relation  between  the  high- 
school  courses  in  our  commercial  and  technical  high  schools  and 
the  actual  field  of  occupation  into  which  their  graduates  go.  There 
is  a  serious  feeling  that  our  high  schools  do  not  necessarily  supply 
a  sufficient  variety  of  courses  to  give  adequate  opportunity  for  the 
secondary  education  of  the  various  types  of  children  who  attend 
them.  There  has  been  an  unfortunate  tendency  to  differentiate 
children  into  those  destined  for  professional  work  and  business 
work  and  manual  work.  This  policy  fails  to  recognize  the  univer- 
sality of  education  and  differentiates  phases  of  education  as  though 
they  possessed  little  value  in  common.  This  attitude  does  not  serve 
as  a  proper  basis  for  the  establishment  of  high-school  courses. 

At  the  Wadleigh  High  School  Mrs.  de  Fremery  states  : 

I  find  that  one  third  of  the  girls  leaving  give  as  their  reason  for  leaving 
that  they  took  up  special  courses  elsewhere,  which  indicates  that  the  work 
that  they  found  in  that  school  was  distinctly  inadequate ;  one  third  said  that 
they  would  probably  take  up  other  courses,  and  one  third  said  that  they  would 
stay  at  home. 

It  would  seem  to  be  of  the  utmost  educational  value  to  have  a 
careful  study  made  of  the  social  return  given  by  graduates  of  our 
various  types  of  high  schools.  The  high  mortality  would  suggest 
that  probably  there  is  too  great  narrowness  in  the  courses  provided 
or  that  we  are  clinging  to  a  traditional  view  of  education  that  is 
interfering  with  educational  progress  in  terms  of  the  needs  of  our 
public-school  children.  Widely  variant  courses  may  be  essential 
in  order  to  permit  of  vocational  guidance  in  its  broadest  edu- 
cational meaning. 

(4)  At  what  period  of  the  school  work  should  vocational  guid- 
ance be  begun  ? 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  297 

Vocational  guidance  is  generally  considered  as  a  function  of  the 
high  school.  It  is  obvious,  however,  that  the  sanest  view  of  voca- 
tional guidance  demands  that  it  be  considered  not  as  a  specific 
duty  of  the  high  school  but  as  a  fundamental  motive  of  the  entire 
educational  system.  In  evidence  of  this  we  may  call  your  attention 
to  a  series  of  authoritative  views. 

Associate  Superintendent  Shallow  thinks  vocational  guidance 
should  be  begun  in  the  upper  grades  of  the  elementary  schools. 

In  the  Hanus  Report  on  "  Intermediate  Schools  "  we  find  this 
statement : 

By  reason  of  the  number  of  children  in  the  intermediate  schools  who  are 
approaching  a  time  when  they  must  choose  a  pursuit,  and  who  need  advice 
that  they  may  choose  wisely,  and  by  reason  of  the  number  of  teachers  having 
to  deal  only  with  such  children,  the  intermediate  school  affords  the  best  pos- 
sible opportunity  to  experiment  and  to  develop  systematic  vocational  guidance. 

Professor  Leonard  comments  : 

It  seems  to  me  vocational  guidance  should  be  part  of  the  elementary-school 
curriculum  from  the  very  first  grade.  Granting  that  the  work  of  vocational 
guidance  is  to  be  begun  in  the  high-school  period,  the  teacher  then  must  have 
information  relative  to  the  pupil  from  the  very  time  he  entered  school. 

Mr.  Gruenberg  advocates  that  vocational  guidance  should  be 
begun  in  the  school  work  early  enough  (i)  to  enable  the  pupil  to 
acquire  a  sufficiently  broad  basis  of  information  for  making  a  wise 
vocational  choice,  and  (2)  to  enable  the  teacher  to  acquire  a  suffi- 
ciently intimate  knowledge  of  the  pupil  to  give  him  competent 
counsel  in  the  making  of  choice  of  further  study. 

Inasmuch  as  most  of  the  children  between  fourteen  and  sixteen 
years  of  age  are  in  the  elementary  schools,  this  work  should  be- 
gin in  these  schools  —  at  least  a  year  or  two  before  the  children 
reach  the  working-certificate  age. 

Frishberg  expresses  his  views  as  follows  : 

I  suppose  if  we  went  into  that  question  very  broadly  we  ought  to  say  that 
vocational  guidance  really  ought  to  commence  in  the  kindergarten.  It  is  our 
intention  not  to  tell  a  boy  you  are  fit  for  this  or  that  particular  thing,  but  to 
give  him  an  opportunity  to  work  at  different  things  and  different  kinds  of 
work,  and  let  the  boy  find  himself  first.  I  think  if  that  opportunity  were  given 
to  a  boy  in  the  seventh  year  it  would  help  to  reduce  that  so-called  mortality  in 


298  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

the  first  and  second  year  of  high  school.  To  come  down  to  the  definite  year 
for  the  beginning  of  that  work,  the  sixth  or  seventh  year  I  would  recommend 
as  the  commencement  of  the  so-called  vocational  guidance. 

Associate  Superintendent  Straubenmiiller,  who  has  given  very 
much  thought  to  this  subject,  expresses  his  views  in  this  way  : 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  establishment  of  vocational  courses  in  the  ele- 
mentary schools  will  be  a  remedy  for  preventing  children  from  leaving  school 
at  fourteen  to  any  greater  degree  than  manual  training  did.  I  do  not  believe 
that  mechanics  can  be  made  out  of  children  who  have  not  sufficient  intelli- 
gence or  sufficient  will  power  to  secure  an  ordinary  school  education.  I  do  not 
believe  that  over-age  children  in  the  grades  are  by  reason  of  that  fact  hand- 
minded  and  should  be  preferred  in  industrial  courses  to  children  of  normal 
age.  I  do  believe  that  the  main  object  of  vocational  courses  in  the  elementary 
schools  should  be  to  assist  children  in  selecting  their  life  work,  and  to  give 
them  some  industrial  or  business  intelligence. 

Professor  Bonser,  of  Teachers  College,  of  the  Vocational  Guid- 
ance Association,  indicates  that  vocational  guidance  should  be  a 
factor  promoting  the  entire  school  system  : 

It  begins  in  the  kindergarten  and  continues  through  the  whole  elementary- 
school  system  so  that  boys  may  intelligently  choose  when  they  have  an  oppor- 
tunity or  when  they  must  leave  school.  A  boy  or  girl  who  goes  to  a  place 
because  he  or  she  must  go  to  work  is  usually  absolutely  without  any  basis  of 
choice  whatsoever. 

Mrs.  Woolley,  of  Cincinnati,  who  has  had  a  wide  experience 
with  this  subject,  asserts  that  most  educators  are  agreed  that  differ- 
entiation should  begin  at  about  twelve  years  or  at  the  end  of  the 
sixth  grade.  She  would,  therefore,  introduce  vocational  guidance 
at  this  point. 

At  the  last  conference  on  vocational  guidance  at  Grand  Rapids 
many  of  the  speakers  considered  it  important  to  point  out  that  it 
is  too  late  to  attempt  vocational  guidance  as  the  child  is  about  to 
leave  the  school. 

Mr.  Henry  Hatch,  principal  of  the  Thorp  School  in  Chicago, 
at  the  same  conference  pointed  out  that,  if  we  wait  until  after  the 
sixth  grade,  we  leave  out  more  than  one  half  of  the  pupils  and 
those  who  most  need  guidance.  Mr.  Jesse  B.  Davis,  principal  of 
the  Central  High  School  of  Grand  Rapids,  said  that  they  had 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  299 

started  the  work  in  the  high  school,  but  as  a  result  of  their  experi- 
ence they  now  begin  vocational  guidance  in  the  seventh  grade. 
He  believed,  however,  that  something  could  be  done  before  this 
grade  to  broaden  the  experience  of  the  children. 

In  the  Davis  Report  we  find  the  following  suggestive  quotations : 

We  recommend  also  for  every  pupil  in  the  general  course,  as  soon  as 
properly  equipped  teachers  can  be  found  to  give  it,  a  course  in  civics  and 
vocational  guidance. 

We  recommend  .  .  .  that  the  principals  of  the  schools  be  authorized  to  dis- 
cover the  real  needs  of  both  boys  and  girls  and  to  establish  special  courses 
that  are  required  to  meet  them. 

In  the  Final  Report  of  the  School  Inquiry  Committee,  in  dis- 
cussing the  working  aims  of  the  schools,  we  read  that  "  The 
school  should  induct  the  child  into  industrial  and  economic  life 
far  enough  so  that  his  education  will  serve  as  a  vocational  aid.  '  It 
should  make  the  child  feel  that  there  is  a  suitable  vocation  open  to 
him  to  which  he  may  aspire.'  As  a  separate  responsibility  of  the 
school  this  duty  does  not  become  separate  and  permanent  until 
toward  the  end  of  the  high-school  course.  It  should  always  be  a 
part  of  the  three  duties  of  the  school  stated  above  to  keep  the 
facts  of  industrial  and  economic  life  prominent,  and  they  will  have 
their  place  as  a  matter  of  course,  if  the  work  of  the  school  is  made 
sufficiently  concrete." 

In  Cincinnati  there  is  a  movement  on  foot  to  try  some  voca- 
tional-guidance work  in  connection  with  the  prevocational  school 
pupils  who  will  not  go  to  high  school  and  who  are  behind  in 
the  grades. 

The  United  States  Commissioner  of  Labor,  in  1910,  wrote : 

One  large  aim  in  vocational  guidance  is  to  develop  the  methods  and 
material  by  which  the  public  schools  may  help  fit  their  individual  graduates 
for  the  work  they  are  likely  to  do,  and  in  this  effort  to  use  all  the  spiritual, 
economic,  educational,  and  other  agencies  which  may  cooperate  to  bring  about 
the  most  complete  information  and  the  best  suggestions. 

Considering  the  views  of  the  quoted  authorities,  it  is  the  belief 
of  your  committee  that  vocational  guidance  is  not  essentially  a 
high-school  function.  If  vocational  guidance  be  regarded  as  an 


300  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

educational  measure,  its  value  should  be  extended  to  all  children 
attending  the  public  schools  in  so  far  as  may  be  possible.  This 
means  that  vocational  guidance  should  be  begun  in  the  elementary 
schools.  In  our  interpretation  of  the  term,  this  does  not  mean 
that  special  teachers  should  be  assigned  to  consider  the  vocational 
tendencies  of  the  children,  but  it  means  that  the  work  in  the 
elementary  schools  should  be  considered  with  relation  to  the 
commercial,  industrial,  and  professional  lines  of  work  into  which 
children  must  necessarily  go. 

In  its  last  analysis  we  believe  vocational  guidance  is  valueless 
unless  it  serves  to  keep  children  in  school  for  a  longer  period  of 
years  than  is  possible  at  the  present  time.  We  believe  it  highly 
desirable  to  consider  the  curriculum  of  the  elementary  schools  with 
a  view  to  adapting  it  and  enriching  it  so  as  to  give  a  larger  num- 
ber of  children  an  opportunity  to  discover  themselves  or  at  least 
evidence  some  aptitudes  which  may  be  of  further  service  in  assist- 
ing teachers  to  give  the  guidance  so  essential  for  their  further 
educational  development. 

In  the  words  of  Professor  Hanus  : 

Vocational  guidance  does  not  mean  merely  helping  boys  and  girls  to  find 
work,  but  to  find  the  kind  of  work  they  are  best  fitted  by  nature  and  training 
to  do  well.  It  does  not  mean  prescribing  a  vocation  ;  it  does  mean  bringing 
to  bear  on  the  choice  of  a  vocation  organized  information  and  organized 
common  sense. 

In  our  opinion  such  an  adaptation  of  the  curriculum  would 
mean  not  so  much  a  change  in  courses  of  study  as  modifications 
in  the  syllabuses,  materials,  and  methods  of  presentation.  A  con- 
siderable amount  of  information  can  be  given  to  the  pupils  con- 
cerning the  various  trades  which  may  be  open  to  them,  so  that 
the  children  themselves  may  be  guided  into  a  consideration  of  the 
question  of  life-careers.  To  make  this  point  of  view  more  apparent 
we  present  herewith  some  concrete  examples  of  how  the  elementary- 
school  curriculum  might  be  enriched  in  the  light  of  its  value  for 
vocational  guidance.  These  have  been  especially  prepared  for  this 
report  by  Professor  Bonser  and  Mr.  Gruenberg. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  301 

THE  ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL  CURRICULUM  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

By  F.  G.  Bonser 

If  the  common  subjects  of  study  are  rich  in  material  relating  to  present-day 
life  activities,  the  regular  school  work  will  contribute  much  that  is  basic  for 
vocational  choice.  Illustrations  of  such  material  in  mathematics,  geography 
history,  and  civics  will  show  possibilities. 

Mathematics.  Studies  in  the  money  values  of  education  yield  excellent 
material.  A  comparison  of  the  wages  of  skilled  and  unskilled  workers  in  the 
five  principal  branches  of  the  building  trades,  taken  from  a  report  of  the  Bureau 
of  Commerce  and  Labor,  shows  these  results :  The  average  wage  for  this 
country  of  skilled  workers  is  $22.27  a  week;  for  the  unskilled,  $10.45.  ^n  the 
five  leading  machine  trades,  the  average  for  the  skilled  workers  is  $17.70  a 
week;  for  the  unskilled,  $9.69.  What  would  training  in  a  vocational  school 
for  three  or  four  years,  lifting  the  worker  from  the  unskilled  group  to  the 
skilled  group,  cost  in  money?  How  much  would  this  be  worth  as  an  invest- 
ment? What  would  be  the  difference  in  income  for  a  year  resulting  from  such 
training  ?  How  would  the  standards  of  living  of  the  two  groups  compare  ? 

A  boy  may  start  at  sixteen  years  of  age  at  $3  a  week  in  a  shop  and  work 
up  to  $16.50  a  week  at  twenty-five  years  of  age;  he  may  also  enter  a  trade 
school  at  sixteen,  go  for  three  years,  and  expect,  on  the  basis  of  results  from 
trade-school  graduates,  to  receive  $22.50  a  week  at  twenty-five  years  of  age. 
It  has  been  estimated  that  every  day  a  boy  spends  in  the  trade  school  was 
worth  $  i  o  to  him  in  money  value.  Similar  figures  are  available  for  girls.  Using 
the  available  facts,  find  whether  these  estimates  are  true. 

The  study  of  a  number  of  the  more  common  occupations  as  to  cost  and 
income,  unemployment,  seasonal  characters  of  work,  is  valuable  material  in 
giving  arithmetical  practice  as  well  as  in  developing  good  common  sense  in 
choosing  an  occupation.  Compare  the  work  of  different  occupations  in  such 
items  of  cost  and  income  as  stock  and  depreciation,  heat,  light,  rent,  ice,  in- 
surance, pay  roll,  advertising,  delivery,  losses  or  waste,  bad  sales,  cartage  and 
express,  conventions,  books  and  periodicals,  taxes,  telephone,  incidentals,  total 
expenses,  sales  or  salary  per  year,  per-cent  profits,  and  net  income.  Facts  may 
be  gotten  that  are  approximately  correct  from  the  community.  Out  of  these 
will  come  such  questions  as :  What  occupations  require  most  and  least  educa- 
tion? most  and  least  investment?  most  responsibility?  longest  hours  of 
work?  What  are  the  wages  or  salaries  in  each  and  how  rapidly  do  these  ad- 
vance? What  are  the  limits  of  advancement?  Which  offer  greatest  rewards 
for  honest,  efficient  effort?  In  which  is  there  largest  opportunity  for  social 
service  ?  In  which  occupations  is  there  most  unemployment  ?  Why  were  there 
over  15,000  business  failures  in  1913?  Why  do  we  see  failures  here  in  New 
York  in  almost  every  block  several  times  a  year?  In  how  far  would  the  right 
kind  of  education  prevent  most  of  these  failures  ?  What  would  such  education 


302  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

cost?  And  various  other  questions  which  bring  out  facts  of  importance  in 
making  vocational  choices. 

Problems  in  the  economics  of  living,  —  values  and  costs  of  food,  rent, 
clothing,  health,  insurance,  and  entertainment,  —  if  made  concrete,  have  very 
significant  values  in  relationship  to  choice  of  occupation.  A  realization  of  the 
cost  of  living  under  varying  standards  and  the  means  necessary  to  attain  the 
higher  standards  is  important.  The  proportions  of  income  to  be  spent  for 
rent,  for  food,  for  clothing,  and  for  other  purposes  is  a  problem  worth  atten- 
tion. The  need  of  thinking  in  terms  of  per  cents  is  very  essential.  Buying 
soap  at  six  bars  for  a  quarter  rather  than  one  bar  at  a  time  at  five  cents  saves 
less  than  a  cent  a  bar,  yet  it  does  save  20  per  cent.  Twenty  per  cent  on  a 
wage  of  $40  a  month  is  $8  —  nearly  $100  a  year.  If  both  men  and  women 
could  be  so  trained  in  school  in  the  economics  of  buying  that  they  would 
always  think  in  terms  of  per  cents,  it  would  profoundly  affect  their  standards 
of  living  for  the  better. 

Through  the  grades  from  fifth  to  eighth,  practically  all  problems  in  mathe- 
matics might  well  come  from  the  daily  problems  of  business,  industry,  and 
household  and  general  expenses.  These,  with  sufficient  drill  work  in  processes, 
would  be  eminently  valuable  in  furnishing  information  basic  to  intelligent 
vocational  choices. 

Geography.  The  study  of  the  sources  of  the  materials  of  industry,  the 
centers  of  production  and  manufacture,  of  markets,  of  the  causes  of  all  of 
these,  and  of  their  effects  upon  the  occupations  of  men  have  indirect  but  sig- 
nificant value  in  arousing  interest  and  developing  intelligence  about  occupa- 
tionsv  and  their  opportunities.  Through  the  studies  of  the  occupations  in 
different  regions  and  centers  of  the  world,  and  the  modifications  of  these  in 
response  to  environing  conditions,  the  relative  attractiveness,  economic  and 
social,  of  many  is  brought  out.  The  conditions  of  labor  in  the  various  countries 
and  centers  of  production  and  manufacture,  the  wages,  the  stability  of  the 
occupations,  the  migrations  of  laborers,  and  the  connection  of  all  of  these  with 
the  products  used  in  our  own  community  or  sent  by  us  to  these  other  com- 
munities will  give  a  wider  and  more  intelligent  interest  in  the  occupations 
studied.  The  sources  of  materials  used  in  a  single  dinner,  including  food, 
china,  glass,  silver  and  other  metal  wares,  linen,  and  dining-room  furniture, 
would  lead  us  to  industrial  and  commercial  centers  in  nearly  all  parts  of  the 
world.  To  trace  these  products  to  their  source,  study  their  methods  of  pro- 
duction, and  consider  other  problems,  economic  and  social,  would  make  the 
geography  have  a  vital  relationship  to  each  boy  and  girl.  Similarly,  tracing 
the  materials  of  one's  clothing  or  household  furnishings,  of  building  materials, 
or  of  other  activities  about  us  would  bring  him  into  intimate  contact  with  every 
place  and  people  in  the  world  worth  knowing  and  would  enable  him  to  see 
why  they  were  of  importance.  Tracing  the  products  sent  from  New  York  for 
one  day  to  their  ultimate  markets  would  further  build  up  this  feeling  of  interde- 
pendence and  relationship  and  dignify  the  occupations  producing  these  exports. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  303 

If  the  work  of  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  grades  in  geography  were 
centered  about  the  problems  of  industry  and  commerce  of  vital  importance  to 
the  people  of  New  York  City,  it  would  be  highly  valuable  in  developing  intel- 
ligent attitudes  toward  occupations,  and  would  omit  little  of  geography  worth 
knowing  from  any  standpoint. 

History.  The  study  of  the  evolution  of  industry,  commerce,  and  the  oc- 
cupations in  general  is  possible  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  much  intelligent 
understanding  of  present-day  vocations.  Every  occupation  has  its  heroes,  its 
discoveries,  and  its  romances,  some  of  which  are  as  fascinating  as  military  his- 
tory. The  information  of  these  evolutions,  together  with  the  economic  and 
social  consequences  growing  out  of  them,  is  really  more  fundamental  and  val- 
uable than  is  most  of  the  knowledge  of  political  events  usually  taught  in  history. 

Some  of  the  suggestive  fields  of  history  which  might  well  be  taught  in  the 
upper  grades  are  the  following : 

The  evolution  of  the  textile  and  clothing  industries  —  primitive  spinning 
and  weaving;  textiles  and  methods  of  production  among  the  Greeks  and 
Romans ;  tapestries  and  tapestry  weaving ;  colonial  looms  and  textiles ;  the 
industrial  revolution  and  the  textile  industries  —  Whitney,  Cartwright,  Kay, 
Hargreaves,  Arkwright,  and  Jacquard ;  the  guilds  and  the  textile  industries ; 
the  sewing  machine  and  the  inventions  of  Howe,  Singer,  and  Wilson  ;  present- 
day  power-driven  sewing  machines ;  Goodyear  and  the  rubber  industry ;  and 
the  status  of  the  textile  and  clothing  industries  of  to-day  as  the  product  of 
all  these  centuries  of  development. 

The  metal-  and  wood-working  industries  offer  much  of  interest.'  From 
Tubal  Cain  to  Bessemer  is  a  long  and  interesting  story.  Period  furniture  is 
rich  in  historic  relationships.  The  development  of  power  machinery  with  the 
stories  of  Watt,  Stephenson,  Fulton,  Parsons,  Stevens,  Ericsson,  Langley, 
Wright  Brothers,  Edison,  and  other  inventors  in  the  fields  of  transportation 
and  communication  are  all  of  interest  and  may  be  directly  connected  with 
present-day  problems  of  one's  own  community. 

Palissy,  Wood,  Wedgwood,  and  others,  together  with  Greek,  Italian,  French, 
Delft,  Dresden,  and  English  pottery,  constitute  another  field.  In  brief,  every 
field  of  commerce  and  industry  is  rich  in  historic  material,  the  study  of  which 
may  lead  to  the  discovery  of  latent  interest  and  aptitudes  and  provide  informa- 
tion helpful  in  vocational  selection.  This  kind  of  historic  study  by  no  means 
excludes  the  important  parts  of  political  history,  but  rather  furnishes  an  intel- 
ligent background  for  them. 

Civics.  In  the  study  of  the  history  of  industry,  with  its  changes  from  hand 
production  to  factory  production  by  machine  processes,  the  need  for  civic  regu- 
lation can  easily  be  traced.  Many  of  the  most  important  problems  of  civic  life 
have  to  do  with  the  conditions  of  industrial  production  and  distribution. 
Among  these  are  the  conditions  of  hazardous  industries,  the  enforcement  of 
laws  relative  to  sanitation  of  the  working  places  and  homes  of  the  workers, 
fire  protection,  factory  laws  and  inspection  relative  to  child  labor,  hours 


304  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

of  labor,  organizations  of  laborers  and  of  employers,  standards  of  purity  of 
products,  of  pensions  and  insurance,  and  of  employers'  liability  and  work- 
men's compensation  in  case  of  accident.  The  theory  of  collective  bargaining, 
the  legal  rights  of  workingmen,  and  the  laws  pertaining  to  education  are  all 
of  importance.  The  general  public  problems  of  taxation  and  the  expenditure 
of  taxes,  the  conditions  of  tenements  and  of  streets  and  other  public  places,  of 
banking  privileges  and  security  from  usury  in  borrowing,  and  how  to  secure 
protection  in  all  forms  against  exploitation  are  questions  of  immediate  impor- 
tance to  the  worker.  The  actual  conditions,  the  laws  relative  to  them,  and  the 
means  for  improving  present  laws  or  for  enforcing  them,  all  have  definite 
bearings  upon  the  choice  of  vocation  and  upon  the  civic  efficiency  of  the 
worker.  Problems  of  this  type  constitute  a  civics  of  appreciable  worth  to  the 
boy  and  girl.  Formal  recitation  of  the  skeletal  facts  of  civic  organization  are 
of  almost  no  consequence  in  awakening  civic  interest  or  developing  civic 
power.  Civic  problems  taken  in  direct  relationship  to  the  topics  in  history, 
industrial  arts,  geography,  or  out  of  the  happenings  of  the  day,  develop  an 
interest  in  the  situations  and  conditions  out  of  which  the  problems  arise. 
They  acquaint  children  with  the  conditions  by  which  the  various  vocations 
are  surrounded.  They  bring  out  aspects  of  the  relative  desirability  of  many 
occupations. 

The  mathematics,  geography,  history,  and  civics  here  suggested  should  all 
be  closely  related  to  the  study  of  the  industrial  and  commercial  arts.  Many  of 
the  problems  in  each  field  can  be  approached  most  naturally  through  the  study 
of  the  industries  or  occupations  themselves  —  those  relating  to  food,  clothing, 
shelter,  utensils,  and  so  on.  The  basis  for  vocational  choice  thus  developed  is 
at  the  same  time  a  beginning  in  the  most  efficient  kind  of  vocational  training 
and  education. 

SUGGESTIONS  AS  TO  VOCATIONAL  OUTLOOK,  ETC. 

By  B.  C.  Gruenberg 

Geography  : 

What  people  have  to  do  to  keep  alive,  to  make  themselves  comfortable. 

How  obtaining  the  necessities  is  dependent  upon  climatic  and  other  ex- 
ternal conditions. 

What  kinds  of  supplies  are  easily  obtained  in  tropical  countries ;  what  kinds 
are  more  easily  obtained  in  temperate  regions. 

What  kind  of  work  is  necessary  to  get  the  various  kinds  of  raw  material 
that  people  use. 

The  kinds  of  work  that  are  necessary  to  convert  the  raw  materials  into 
usable  articles. 

The  conditions  that  lead  to  the  rise  and  development  of  trade  and  com- 
merce. The  function  of  commerce  in  relation  to  meeting  human  wants. 

Division  of  labor  within  a  country ;  within  a  branch  of  industry  or  a  major 
line  of  occupations. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  305 

The  mutual  interdependence  of  peoples  in  different  regions  of  the  earth 
for  raw  materials  and  other  supplies. 

What  we  get  from  country  A,  B,  C,  etc.  What  we  return  to  the  various 
countries.  The  kinds  of  work  that  are  done  to  produce  the  major  groups 
of  commodities. 

How  people  live  in  different  parts  of  the  country ;  how  the  mode  of  life 
depends  upon  natural  conditions  and  upon  occupational  conditions. 

History  : 

All  historical  study  in  elementary  schools  and  in  high  schools  should  center 
upon  the  evolution  of  people's  ways  of  living  rather  than  upon  the  political 
forms  and  conflicts. 

The  young  children  are  instinctively  in  sympathy  with  primitive  modes  of 
life ;  and  long  before  we  can  think  of  giving  them  historical  instruction  they 
love  to  hear  of  the  Indians  and  their  tent  life,  of  hunting  and  fishing,  and 
fighting  wild  animals. 

The  evolution  of  civilization  is  one  side  a  development  of  institutions  and 
ideals  and  an  accumulation  of  spiritual  treasures.  On  another  side,  however, 
it  is  the  development  of  man's  mastery  of  the  forces  of  nature.  This  mastery 
shows  itself  in  man's  economic  activities.  Growing  out  of  the  study  of  geog- 
raphy should  come  the  study  of  this  evolution  of  man's  control  through  work. 

The  problems  in  history  would  then  be  such  as  these : 

How  people  lived  and  how  they  supplied  their  wants  at  the  time  of  the 
Crusades ;  what  improvements  in  the  modes  of  life  and  in  the  modes  of  getting 
a  living  from  nature  arose  during  the  succeeding  centuries. 

What  economic  improvements  made  possible  the  releasing  of  men's  time 
for  the  pursuit  of  philosophy  or  the  fine  arts? 

How  widely  were  the  successive  gains  distributed;  that  is,  what  portion 
of  the  population  profited  by  each  of  the  great  epochal  achievements  in  the 
practical  arts? 

The  great  contributors  to  the  arts  of  peace,  the  heroes  of  navigation,  of  scien- 
tific discovery,  of  practical  inventiveness,  should  receive  increased  attention. 

Changing  conditions  as  to  hours  of  labor,  as  to  housing,  municipal  affairs, 
transportation,  communication,  education,  amusements,  recreation,  etc.,  should 
be  connected  with  increasing  efficiency  of  labor  and  improving  organization  of 
the  political  side  of  life  in  relation  to  industry,  etc. 

Civics  : 

The  growth  of  urban  populations  in  recent  times  can  be  connected  directly 
with  the  "industrial  revolution." 

The  problems  of  city  life  can  be  developed  from  two  major  sources : 

(1)  People  living  close  together  must  avoid  stepping  upon  each  other's  toes. 
This  has  always  been  true. 

(2)  Modern  ways  of  producing  and  distributing  commodities  raise  new  prob- 
lems calling  for  community  or  civic  solution  rather  than  individual  treatment. 


306  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Much  of  the  present-day  teaching  in  civics  has  to  do  with  factors  arising 
out  of  ( i ) ;  the  great  need  is  for  clear  recognition  of  the  second  aspect  and  for 
increasing  emphasis  thereon. 

Regulations  of  industry,  municipal,  state,  and  federal.  Why  the  "  right  of 
contract "  has  been  considered  so  important ;  and  why  other  considerations 
often  conflict  with  this  supposed  right. 

Examples  from  the  regulation  of  hours  of  labor ;  the  relation  of  these  regu- 
lations to  the  health  of  the  population. 

Regulation  of  industries  with  respect  to  pollution  of  streams ;  pollution  of 
the  atmosphere. 

Examples  of  traffic  regulations  from  conditions  in  the  immediate  neighborhood. 

Why  regulations  of  the  labor  of  women  and  children  must  be  differentiated 
from  the  general  regulations. 

Prohibitions  of  specific  industries ;  for  example,  the  manufacture  of  white- 
phosphorus  matches. 

Safety  devices  in  various  kinds  of  shops  and  factories,  required  by  law. 
The  inclosure  of  wheels,  belts,  saws,  and  other  moving  parts. 

Fire  regulations  in  relation  to  industrial  conditions. 

Public  regulation  of  docks  and  waterfront  activities. 

Health  regulations  for  factories,  etc.,  through  departments  of  health. 

Compulsory  insurance  as  a  social  function,  arising  from  the  nature  of  certain 
occupations  and  from  the  relations  of  the  workers  to  employers,  etc. 

Exercise  in  percentage ;  multiplication;  extensions,  etc.: 

Given  a  table  showing  the  percentage  distribution  of  family  incomes,  in 
rent,  food,  clothing,  etc. 

How  much  does  the  Smith  family  spend  upon  each  of  these  items,  the 
yearly  income  being  calculated  from  the  following  data: 


Weekly  wages 

Weeks  employed  during  the  year 


How  much  rent  is  paid  for  your  home?    How  much  is  that  per  room? 

How  does  your  family  income  compare  with  that  of  the  Smith  family? 

From  a  table  supplied,  find  out  in  what  occupations  a  man  would  be 
able  to  maintain  a  family  in  a  home  which  costs  $20  per  month ;  $25  per 
month,  etc. 

What  would  be  the  average  expenditure  for  food  each  week  for  a  family 
supported  by  a  man  working  at  trade  A ;  trade  B ;  trade  C,  etc. 

It  would  be  feasible  to  make  a  schedule  of  family  consumption  and 
then  have  children  figure  how  much  food  is  allowed  by  various  levels  of 
income. 

Girls  can  figure  how  much  they  can  save  on  home  sewing :  so  many  hours 
of  work,  plus  so  much  material.  Compare  with  cost  of  ready-made  garments 
of  same  grade.  Does  it  pay  to  make  this  garment  at  home?  What  kind  of 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  307 

work  does  it  pay  to  make  at  home?  What  kinds  of  goods  does  it  pay  better 
to  buy  ready-made? 

Family  budgets  and  individual  budgets,  to  determine  the  minimum  wage 
upon  which  a  living  of  a  specified  level  can  be  maintained. 

From  statistical  tables,  to  determine  ratios  of  wages  to  capital  invested  in 
different  industries  (indicating  relative  proportion  of  skilled  and  unskilled  or 
low-wage  and  high-wage  workers). 

Amount  of  capital  invested  in  industries  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  in  each  of  a  series 
of  years  —  indicating  the  growth  or  shrinkage  of  an  industry.  Number  of 
men  employed  in  each  industry  for  a  period  of  years.  Number  of  men, 
women,  and  children,  and  percentages,  in  each  of  the  industries.  Changes  in 
the  proportions  of  men  and  women  and  children,  during  a  period  of  years, 
to  show  the  trend  and  modification  of  opportunities. 

(5)  What  is  the  relation  of  vocational  guidance  to  elementary 
schools  ? 

If  the  curriculum  of  the  elementary  school  could  be  adapted  by 
this  process  of  content  enrichment,  the  practical  phases  of  voca- 
tional guidance  would  be  manifest  during  the  elementary-school 
period.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  courses  of  study  must  present 
fluidity.  They  should  not  be  fixed  for  any  particular  space  of  time, 
but  should  be  modified  according  to  the  changes  in  the  economic 
conditions  of  the  times  they  are  serving  and  according  to  the 
nature  of  the  school  population.  From  the  standpoint  of  guidance 
the  elementary-school  curriculum  must  possess  vision  ;  in  a  sense, 
it  must  foresee  industrial,  commercial,  and  professional  possibilities 
of  the  future  so  that  its  graduates  may  be  prepared  for  them. 
This  view  is  partially  supported  in  the  Final  Report  on  School 
Inquiry,  wherein  the  place  of  education  in  modern  life  is  thus 
referred  to : 

Any  educational  standards  must  be  regarded  at  present  as  provisional  and 
temporary.  The  public  school  is  an  instrument  of  social  development.  Its 
existence  testifies  to  the  fact  that  the  present  economic  and  social  order  is  not 
final.  If  education  were  subordinated  to  the  present  economic  order,  its  influ- 
ence would  become  the  more  deadly  as  it  became  more  scientific  and  com- 
pelling. It  is  therefore  clear  that  the  secondary  school  should  not  aim  to 
determine  a  child's  vocation  definitely  or  to  fit  him  for  a  certain  calling.  The 
various  agencies  of  general  society  and  higher  education  can  do  that.  The 
elementary  school  should  facilitate  and  simplify  the  process  of  economic 
selection,  and  should  act  as  a  transmitter  between  human  supply  and  industrial 
demand. 


308  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

A  committee  of  the  National  Education  Association  has  formu- 
lated a  similar  view : 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  constructive  work  and  the  study  of  industry  in 
the  elementary  school  will  ultimately  be  of  such  a  character  that  when  the 
pupil  reaches  the  age  at  which  the  activities  of  adult  life  make  their  appeal  he 
will  be  able  to  make  a  wise  choice  in  reference  to  them,  and  be  already  ad- 
vanced in  an  appreciable  measure  toward  the  goal  of  his  special  vocation. 

With  this  interpretation  vocational  guidance  does  not  become  a 
special  function  of  a  particular  official,  but  is  virtually  a  by-product 
of  the  educational  system.  In  the  language  of  Mr.  Lovejoy,  "The 
whole  school  curriculum  should  be  shot  through  with  industrial  in- 
terpretation instead  of  merely  having  a  single  vocational  counsellor." 

For  those  children  who  are  to  complete  the  elementary  schools, 
the  first  large  problem  presents  itself  in  their  deflection  to  the 
high  school  supplying  the  courses  for  which  they  are  physically 
and  mentally  best  adapted.  A  wise  distribution  of  the  elementary- 
school  graduates  to  the  high  schools  will  simplify  the  difficult  prob- 
lem of  vocational  guidance  during  the  secondary-school  period. 
Under  the  present  system  it  may  hardly  be  said  that  the  basis 
of  distribution  is  on  a  scientific  basis.  The  immense  mortality  of 
the  first  two  years  of  high  school  attests  in  part  that  the  children 
have  not  found  themselves. 

Obviously,  the  ordinary  teacher  in  the  elementary  schools  or  any 
ordinary  individual  does  not  possess  sufficient  information  regard- 
ing vocations  to  be  of  great  value  in  vocational  guidance.  To 
remedy  this  defect  it  would  appear  wise  to  consider  the  educa- 
tional and  psychological  bases  of  vocational  guidance  as  they 
appear  in  individuals,  with  a  view  to  supplying  instruction  in  this 
direction  in  our  training  schools.  Such  instruction  could  be 
afforded  without  the  sacrifice  of  any  really  valuable  subjects  in 
the  training  school.  If,  in  addition  to  this,  training  schools  would 
lay  more  stress  upon  the  concrete  problems  that  are  available 
for  teaching  in  elementary  schools,  the  present  deficiency  of 
elementary-school  teachers  might  be  corrected. 

Mrs.  Woolley  at  Grand  Rapids  called  attention  to  the  fact  that 
an  adequate  school  system  should  possess  the  facilities  for  training 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  309 

all  children  for  any  reasonable  demands  in  the  way  of  an  occu- 
pation. The  most  obvious  demand  upon  the  school  she  finds  to 
be  that  for  increased  variety  of  instruction,  for  more  teachers,  and 
for  more  kinds  of  teachers.  Hence  the  practical  problem  as  to 
what  kinds  of  training  should  be  introduced  into  the  schools  as  a 
start  must  bring  out  the  need  for  information  about  the  educational 
facts  of  the  community  and  information  about  the  occupational  op- 
portunities. Moreover,  the  schools  should  offer  a  sufficient  variety 
of  work  to  test  out  the  capacities  of  the  pupils. 

(6)  What  are  to  be  the  methods  of  discovering  the  capacity  and 
aptitudes  of  school  children  f 

That  there  are  many  difficulties  in  any  extensive  plan  in  voca- 
tional guidance  has  been  expressed  by  many  persons.  In  the 
words  of  Mr.  Tildsley, 

It  seems  to  me  it  is  both  impossible  and  undesirable  to  do  any  extensive 
vocational  direction  in  the  elementary  schools ;  I  am  rather  inclined  to  believe 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  do  very  much  of  it  in  high  school. 

In  order  to  successfully  undertake  vocational  guidance  there 
must  be  some  methods  of  discovering  the  capacities  and  aptitudes 
of  school  children.  There  have  been  seven,  more  or  less,  plans 
or  methods  proposed  or  in  use  for  discovering  the  abilities  of 
school  children  : 

(1)  Direct  study  by  pupils  of  information  about  occupations 

or  of  occupations  through  visits,  etc. 

(2)  Psychological  tests. 

(3)  Examination  of  physical  characteristics,  known  or  assumed 

to  be  correlated  with  mental  and  moral  qualities. 

(4)  Questionnaires. 

(5)  Study  of  pupils  by  the  teachers. 

(6)  Varied  school  work. 

(7)  Employment  supervision. 

(i)  While  a  certain  measure  of  information  may  be  derived  by 
visitation  of  industrial  organizations  and  by  direct  study  at  these 
times,  the  most  fundamental  thing  to  be  remembered  is  that  a 
good  education  is  essential  in  the  elementary  schools.  The  40,000 
children  who  come  out  of  our  schools  yearly  would  be  greatly 


310  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

helped  if  the  study  of  industries  merely  gave  them  the  important 
information  as  to  the  types  of  trades  they  should  not  enter.  Great 
advantages  would  result  from  pointing  out  the  "blind-alley"  trades. 
The  difference  between  juvenile  employments  and  those  which 
possess  a  future  of  significance  to  adults  should  receive  most  care- 
ful attention.  By  the  study  of  occupations,  it  would  be  possible 
to  drive  home  the  necessity  of  continuing  to  study,  if  perchance 
economic  stress  forces  children  into  "  blind-alley "  occupations, 
with  a  view  to  fitting  themselves  for  forsaking  such  occupations 
at  the  earliest  possible  moment.  If  it  were  possible  to  discover 
the  aptitudes  demanded  in  various  occupations,  vocational  guidance 
would  be  simplified.  As  has  been  well  said  by  Dr.  Ayres  : 

If  we  are  to  know  what  are  the  methods  of  discovering  the  capacities  and 
aptitudes  of  children,  we  must  know  what  are  the  aptitudes  needed  in  the  occu- 
pation, and,  secondly,  in  what  measure  this  applicant  possesses  those  aptitudes. 
It  has  been  suggested  just  now  that  we  must  know  what  an  employer  wants. 
Unfortunately  the  employer  does  not  know.  You  can  ask  him  if  you  will,  but 
just  what  specific  abilities  he  needs  in  a  boy  he  does  not  know.  Even  with  the 
employer  employing  people  to  work  at  machines  he  does  not  know  what  he 
wants  them  to  be,  except  that  they  must  be  skillful,  honest,  energetic. 

Apparently  many  of  the  aptitudes  will  be  evidenced  by  interest 
in  various  occupations,  by  imitative  construction,  or  by  an  enhanced 
desire  for  further  study  of  some  of  the  occupations  examined. 
Mr.  Tildsley  criticizes  the  elementary  schools  not  alone  because 
no  aptitudes  are  developed,  but  because  the  power  of  thinking 
has  not  been  fostered.  In  his  words  : 

It  is  perfectly  right  to  say  that  the  average  elementary -school  boy  does  not 
know  how  to  work,  and  I  suppose  the  colleges  say  the  very  same  thing  of  our 
high-school  graduates.  The  fundamental  difficulty  is  that  the  boy  has  no 
aptitude  to  do  any  kind  of  work.  I  believe  that  the  fault,  after  all,  is  in  the 
methods  of  training ;  that,  instead  of  devising  some  system  of  analysis  by  the 
pupil  or  somebody  else,  we  ought  to  pay  attention  to  improving  the  methods 
in  the  elementary  and  high  schools.  Our  boys  and  girls  come  to  the  high 
school  without  the  power  of  thinking  a  thing  out  for  themselves,  and  they 
largely  go  out  from  the  high  school  without  that  power. 

(2)  The  psychological  tests  thus  far  have  been  suggestive  of 
possibilities,  but  have  not  produced  significant  results.  Thus  far 
it  is  safe  to  assert  that  the  psychological  tests  can  be  regarded 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  311 

as  of  very  little  consequence  in  the  field  of  vocational  guidance. 
Mrs.  Woolley  has  been  doing  some  excellent  work  with  psycho- 
logical tests  as  the  basis  of  classifying  the  abilities  of  children. 
She  has  experienced  the  greatest  difficulty  in  the  way  of  devel- 
oping these  tests  for  the  purpose  of  vocational  guidance  because 
of  our  general  ignorance  as  to  the  requirements  of  the  various 
occupations.  The  fundamental  difficulty  lies  in  the  fact  that 
few  employers  or  managers  are  capable  of  analyzing  their  own 
industries  or  of  indicating  what  type  of  employees  they  require 
for  particular  jobs. 

(3)  Insufficient  investigation  has  been  made  of  the  correlation 
of  physical  characteristics  with  mental  and  moral  qualities.    Out- 
side of  the  claims  of  phrenologists  that  they  are  able  to  determine 
characteristics  and  aptitudes  through  cranial  topography,  few  indi- 
viduals have  given  much  thought  to  the  subject.     Similarly,  the 
claims  of  physiognomists  have  not  been  verified  through  scientific 
study.    Impressions  as  to  character  derived  from  personal  observa- 
tion and  contact  may  be  of  service  in  individual  cases,  but  as  a  gen- 
eral method  for  determining  aptitudes  it  has  little  scientific  value. 

(4)  The  use  of  questionnaires  has  been  tried  in  places,  as  in- 
deed have  questionnaires  for  self -analysis.     Mr.  Charles  Perrine 
stated  to  your  subcommittee:  "I  believe  it  would  be  a  very  simple 
matter  for  us  to  have  in  every  school  in  this  city  questions  answered 
by  each  teacher  from  the  fifth  year  on — not  fool  questions  —  and 
I  believe  it  would  pay  to  ship  them  on  with  the  children  when  they 
get  a  transfer,  the  object  being  that  the  principal,  on  graduation  of 
the  boy  or  when  he  leaves  school,  can  guide  him." 

If  it  were  possible  to  have  a  continuous  record  of  school  children 
bearing  the  annotations  of  all  their  teachers,  possibly  some  benefit 
might  accrue  by  the  end  of  the  elementary-school  period.  It  is 
doubtful,  however,  whether  this  plan  is  practical,  though  it  would 
be  a  valuable  experiment  in  the  direction  of  determining  the  ability 
of  teachers  to  gain  some  idea  of  the  aptitudes  of  children  from 
their  interest,  activity,  and  results  in  the  various  subjects  of  the 
elementary-school  curriculum. 

Self-analysis  appears  to  be  undesirable,  because  even  during 
the  high-school  periods  most  pupils  are  too  young  to  carry  on  an 


•  312  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

honest,  scientific,  and  correct  self-analysis  though  they  have  been 
trained  in  the  psychological  methods  of  introspection. 

(5)  The  direct  study  of  pupils  by  the  teachers  may  possess  some 
value,  although  it  is  difficult  to  estimate  this  in  the  absence  of  ade- 
quate data.    That  some  high-school  principals  believe  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  high-school  teachers  to  determine  these  aptitudes  is 
evident  from  the  statement  of  Mr.  Tildsley : 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  considerable  amount  of  vocational  direction  is 
possible  in  the  high  schools,  because  no  one  of  us  is  capable  of  measuring  the 
aptitudes  of  boys.  I  have  been  meeting  boys  for  the  last  twenty  years  and  I 
have  associated  with  them  very  intimately,  and  I  must  say  it  is  impossible  for 
me  to  decide  what  profession  or  calling  they  are  suited  for.  All  I  feel  I  can  do 
is  to  warn  the  boy  against  certain  occupations.  I  think  if  I  find  a  boy  has  no 
aptitude  for  science  I  have  a  right  to  say  to  him,  "  Don't  be  a  physician."  In 
other  words,  all  we  can  do  in  the  high  schools  is  to  warn  boys  against  occu- 
pations for  which  they  are  unsuited,  but  we  cannot  in  any  way  guide  them 
into  the  occupations  to  which  they  are  to  go,  boys  change  so. 

Where  schools  are  organized  upon  a  departmental  basis,  as  in 
the  high  schools,  it  obviously  becomes  more  difficult  for  teachers 
to  learn  anything  of  the  aptitudes  of  their  children  except  in  so 
far  as  they  may  be  related  to  the  special  branches  taught  by  the 
departmental  teachers.  This  condition  does  not  obtain  in  most  of 
the  elementary  schools,  and  consequently  the  ordinary  teacher  in 
the  elementary  school  is  probably  as  capable  of  judging  aptitudes 
as  the  special  teacher  of  particular  subjects. 

(6)  In  so  far  as  vocational  guidance  demands  the  self-discovery 
of  aptitudes,  it  is  evident  that  there  is  great  necessity  of  having  a 
greater  variety  in  school  work.    In  the  language  of  Dr.  Strauben- 
miiller :  "  When  you  talk  about  vocational  guidance  based  upon 
certain  experiences  in  various  trades  it  means  teaching  the  chil- 
dren some  of  the  processes  of  these  trades  in  order  to  give  them 
a  knowledge  of  the  trades.    Now,  the  great  difficulty  is  to  find 
what  are  the  processes."    If,  however,  it  is  possible  to  demon- 
strate some  of  the  essential  processes,  it  might  be  possible  to  in- 
corporate them  in  the  elementary-school  training  during  the  period 
of  the  seventh  and  eighth  grades,  where  differentiated  courses  have 
now  been  instituted  for  purposes  of  experiment.  The  experimental 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  313 

value  of  differentiated  courses,  well  chosen  on  the  basis  of  indus- 
trial needs  and  educational  processes,  cannot  be  overestimated. 

If  school  work  could  be  varied  in  method,  possibly  a  great  ad- 
vantage might  be  demonstrated  for  practical  vocational  guidance. 
This  view  is  well  expressed  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Tildsley : 

If  in  our  elementary  and  high  schools  we  would  substitute  problem  methods 
(let  the  problems  be  simple  in  the  earlier  grades)  by  which  a  pupil  would  be 
given  some  little  task  to  do  by  himself,  something  which  he  would  have  to 
think  about,  we  would  have  done  more  to  solve  the  problem  of  vocational 
guidance  than  in  any  other  way.  With  the  course  of  study  that  we  have,  the 
substitution  of  the  problem  method  and  the  requirement  of  some  thinking 
on  the  part  of  the  pupil  for  the  present  system  of  memorizing  would  produce 
pupils  who  could  go  into  almost  any  line  of  work  and  do  it  successfully. 

The  reconstruction  of  the  educational  content  of  some  of  our 
courses  could  be  secured  without  the  sacrifice  of  any  essential 
values.  It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  the  statement  of  Mr.  Leonard  : 

The  things  that  are  interesting  from  the  standpoint  of  vocational  guidance 
are  the  people,  what  the  people  do,  what  the  human  problems  are.  That  in- 
volves not  eliminating  any  of  those  things,  but  reconstructing  in  the  way  of 
an  addition,  relative  to  occupations,  relative  to  nationalities,  immigration,  the 
tenement  industry,  the  fire  system,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing  which  can  be  pre- 
sented from  the  first  grade  to  the  last ;  the  work  of  the  police  and  fire  depart- 
ments, the  work  of  New  York  City's  administration,  rather  than  things  which 
deal  more  largely  with  physical  facts.  Aside  from  that  kind  of  reconstruction, 
which  is  rather  an  addition,  rather  an  enlargement,  there  must  be  an  enlarge- 
ment of  the  various  units. 

In  order  to  keep  pace  with  the  constant  changes  in  industrial  life, 
school  work  should  possess  adaptability.  To  quote  Miss  Barrows  : 

This  power  of  adaptability  must  be  based  upon  general  training  rather  than 
specialized  training,  because  you  cannot  adapt  if  you  have  only  one  thing  from 
which  to  adapt.  The  teaching  of  the  simple  process  rather  than  special  trades 
is  the  practical  end. 

The  late  Mr.  Sheppard  struck  a  keynote  of  the  problem  by 
stating  the  need  of  real  training  and  not  the  mere  giving  of 
information.  The  actual  training  should  possess  potential  power. 
Children  may  learn  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  various  complexities 
of  the  life  into  which  they  are  to  enter.  This  power  must  be  based, 
however,  upon  fundamental  training  all  through  the  school  system. 


314  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Professor  Lough  has  indicated  one  of  the  difficulties  in  deter- 
mining the  variations  essential  in  school  work  in  that  it  is  first 
necessary  to  find  out  what  is  required  in  an  industry.  This  must 
precede  any  complete  plan  that  contemplates  devising  methods  for 
determining  the  aptitudes  necessary  for  our  special  occupations.  In 
his  opinion,  it  might  be  possible  to  classify  our  vocations  not  with 
regard  to  the  practice  of  or  the  names  applied  to  the  vocations, 
but  with  regard  to  some  fundamental  aptitudes.  He  has  wisely 
commented : 

One  of  the  things  that  we  can  do  in  our  school  work  very  easily  is  to  make 
it  possible  for  a  person  to  go  from  one  general  field  of  training  into  another 
without  a  great  loss  of  time.  A  student  going  from  the  Commercial  High 
School  in  this  city  will  find  something  of  a  blind  alley  if  he  tries  teaching.  He 
cannot  get  into  the  Teachers'  Training  School  in  New  York  City  and  train 
himself,  from  the  Commercial  High  School. 

(7)  The  supervision  of  employment  based  upon  a  system  of 
placement  with  a  follow-up  plan  provides  a  means  of  learning  the 
aptitudes  demanded  in  industry,  but  during  the  period  of  trial 
many  mistakes  would  undoubtedly  result.  This  plan  has  a  distinct 
value,  though  this  cannot  be  definitely  fixed  at  the  present  time. 

At  the  Grand  Rapids  conference  Professor  S.  P.  Breckinridge, 
of  The  University  of  Chicago,  called  attention  to  the  value  of  place- 
ment work  as  a  means  of  discovering  the  aptitudes  of  children. 
She  insisted,  however,  that  in  all  work  of  this  character  the  inter- 
ests and  welfare  of  the  child  should  be  constantly  in  the  mind  of 
those  responsible  for  the  supervision.  Vocational  counselors  are 
necessary  for  placement  work  as  at  present  organized.  Experi- 
enced counselors  are  not  available  even  though  they  might  be  more 
valuable  than  teachers  interested  in  the  subject  of  placement  who 
lack  the  practical  knowledge  of  industrial  life.  The  true  value  of 
employment  supervision,  as  reported  by  Gruenberg,  was  stated  by 
her  as  follows  :  "  Through  employment  supervision  one  would  get 
information  not  only  about  the  children,  their  needs,  their  capaci- 
ties, but  also  about  the  industries."  She  quoted  with  approval 
Mrs.  Sidney  Webb :  "  You  go  to  the  man  at  the  head ;  he  talks 
well,  but  he  does  not  know  the  work.  You  must  get  at  the  workers 
to  find  out  actual  conditions." 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  315 

.  On  the  other  hand,  the  professional  educational  counselor  is  a 
makeshift  and  up  to  the  present  time  has  not  demonstrated  his 
value  in  throwing  light  upon  the  aptitudes  of  children  as  related 
to  the  business  world.  Puffer  has  again  stated  that 

In  certain  ways,  to  be  sure,  the  professional  vocational  guide  has  an  advan- 
tage even  over  the  teacher.  He  is  supposed  to  have  the  better  technical  equip- 
ment, and  he  devotes  himself  more  or  less  exclusively  to  this  single  field.  But 
such  vocational  counselors  are,  unfortunately,  few ;  and  not  one  parent  in  a 
thousand  ever  thinks  of  seeking  their  advice.  Moreover,  they  commonly  see 
their  clients  too  late,  after  they  have  finished  their  schooling  and  have  lost  op- 
portunities that  would  have  been  to  their  advantage  or  have  acquired  habits 
that  tend  to  their  detriment.  Even  with  all  the  elaborate  and  accurate  modern 
technique  for  diagnosing  a  youth's  equipment,  the  professional  counselor  is 
always  a  partial  stranger,  who  deals  with  his  subject  under  somewhat  arti- 
ficial conditions. 

(7)  What  methods  and  agencies  exist  for  the  purpose  of  aiding 
vocational  guidance  through  frtrther  training  ? 

In  order  to  give  vocational  guidance  even  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  a  proper  distribution  of  elementary-school  children  in  the 
high  schools  there  should  be  the  opportunity  for-  children  to  come 
in  contact  with  specially  selected  literature  on  occupations.  There 
would  be  little  cost  in  having  a  reference  table  containing  books 
on  vocations  with  an  index  to  magazine  articles  on  separate  voca- 
tions for  the  use  of  inquiring  boys  and  girls.  In  the  language  of 
Meyer  Bloomfield : 

The  main  purpose  of  a  series  of  pamphlets  dealing  with  vocations  for  boys 
and  girls  should  be  to  equip  the  schools  with  facts  now  lacking,  showing  that 
the  specializations  of  business  and  industry  are  such  as  to  make  the  leaving 
school  on  the  part  of  fourteen-year-old  children  a  most  wasteful  and  unprofit- 
able step.  In  the  next  place,  such  booklets  must  show  parents  and  children 
that  the  occupations  in  which  young  people  can  amount  to  anything  are  those 
which  require  some  kind  of  preparation,  some  preliminary  apprenticeship,  best 
obtained  in  school. 

Booklets  on  occupations,  therefore,  intended  for  guidance,  are  valuable  only 
to  the  extent  of  their  appeal  to  motives  which  prolong  school  life,  which  help 
send  the  children  into  further  training  opportunities.  In  pointing  out  what  is 
ahead  for  the  young  worker,  and  the  training  required  in  order  to  enter  a 
promising  employment,  such  studies  should  help  reduce  the  drifting  and  tragic 
self-experimentation  of  a  multitude  of  young  wage  earners. 


316  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  mere  giving  of  information  and  advice  is  insufficient. 
There  must  be  offered  opportunity  for  further  training  based 
upon  the  aptitudes  demonstrated  and  the  advice  given.  The  pub- 
lic schools,  therefore,  should  have  at  their  command  facilities  and 
resources  for  any  legitimate  vocational  training  that  a  child  may 
wish  to  pursue.  This  does  not  require  the  installation  of  such 
training  in  all  the  public  schools ;  it  does  mean,  however,  that  the 
schools  through  the  principals  or  other  authorized  persons  should 
be  able  to  give  definite  information  as  to  the  places  where  further 
training  may  be  secured  in  specific  vocations.  There  appears  to  be 
a  great  need  for  a  bureau  of  information.  As  was  well  stated  by 
Miss  Anna  E.  McAuliffe  : 

Latent  power  cannot  be  estimated  and  for  that  reason  vocational  guidance 
must  establish  bureaus  of  information  rather  than  bureaus  of  assignment.  We 
may  give  any  available  information  as  to  the  nature  of  certain  employments, 
the  ratio  of  supply  and  demand,  the  rate  of  wages,  the  necessary  qualifications. 
And  here  I  feel  constrained  to  say  that  this  task  ought  not  to  be  placed 
on  teachers. 

There  is  every  indication  that  there  is  a  need  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  new  social-service  agency.  More  information  must  be 
secured  with  reference  to  juvenile  employment.  Present  agencies 
interested  in  vocational  guidance,  vocational  training,  vocational 
analysis,  and  placement  should  be  brought  into  a  cooperating 
commission  for  the  purposes  of  studying  the  practical  methods 
which  may  be  devised  for  extending  vocational  guidance  through 
further  training. 

(8)  What  agencies  exist  for  the  distribution  of  school  children 
zvitk  a  mew  to  their  securing  the  training  made  necessary  through 
vocational  guidance  ? 

There  is  a  dearth  of  agencies  for  the  distribution  of  school 
children  in  a  vocational  direction  based  upon  an  educational  ideal. 
Vocational  counselors  have  been  employed  in  many  cities  of  the 
United  States  for  the  purpose  of  guiding  children  in  so  far  as  in- 
formation and  opportunity  permit  it.  The  school  has  not  been 
equal  nor  indeed  has  it  attempted  to  be  equal  to  the  task  of 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  317 

distributing  school  children  with  a  view  to  securing  further  training. 
Greater  stress,  unfortunately,  has  been  placed  upon  the  supplying 
of  an  occupation.  Employment  organizations,  employment  secre- 
taries, employment  offices,  represent  agencies  which  may  secure 
occupations  leading  in  one  way  or  another  to  some  possible  further 
training  in  specific  occupations.  If  manufacturers  possessed  the 
same  interest  in  the  training  of  children  that  they  do  in  securing 
them  as  workers,  a  new  agency  might  be  devised  in  cooperation 
with  employers  with  a  view  to  furthering  vocational  guidance 
through  occupation.  In  this  relation  the  continuation  school  pos- 
sesses some  merits,  but  here  again  is  a  problem  which  requires  care- 
ful study  in  connection  with  the  schools  of  New  York  City.  Plans 
which  might  be  successful  in  Cincinnati,  Fitchburg,  Rochester, 
or  Gloversville  might  fail  when  introduced  into  the  New  York 
City  system. 

The  greatest  educational  use  of  agencies  for  the  distribution  of 
school  children  should  be  to  return  them  to  the  schools  for  further 
training.  In  Chicago  the  vocational  advisers  have  succeeded  in 
inducing  a  very  large  percentage  of  children  who  apply  for  work 
certificates  to  go  back  to  school  if  only  to  complete  the  course. 

In  the  record  of  the  Vocation  Bureau  of  Boston,  1914, 
we  learn: 

One  of  the  principal  provisions  in  the  arrangements  between  the  School 
Committee  and  the  Vocation  Bureau  was  for  a  group  of  teachers  to  be  known 
as  vocational  counselors,  to  be  appointed  by  their  respective  principals  and  to 
represent  every  school  in  Boston.  Over  one  hundred  teachers  were  so  ap- 
pointed three  years  ago,  and  they  have  been  meeting  throughout  the  school 
year  to  consider  the  educational  opportunities  of  the  city,  the  vocational  prob- 
lems of  the  children,  and  to  confer  with  employers  and  others  who  have  been 
invited  to  the  sessions.  The  work  of  the  vocational  counselors  has  been  a 
labor  of  love. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  value  of  the  school  counselors  we  de- 
sire to  call  attention  to  Circular  Number  10,  1913,  of  the  Super- 
intendent of  Schools  of  Boston.  This  circular  was  issued  after  the 
School  Committee  had  voted  to  establish  a  vocational-guidance 
department. 


318  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Boston  Public  Schools, 
Superintendent's  Office, 

February  12,  1913 
To  the  Principals  of  Schools  and  Districts : 

In  order  to  make  the  work  in  vocational  instruction  uniform  it  seems  de- 
sirable to  have  the  counselors  all  over  the  city  chosen  as  follows : 

Two  from  each  elementary-school  building  containing  a  graduating  class. 

One  from  each  building  containing  grades  above  the  fourth  but  below 
the  eighth. 

Two  from  each  high  school. 

The  plan,  which  will  be  outlined  later,  will  consist  of  (i)  work  with  the 
graduates  and  (2)  with  those  who  drop  out  before  the  graduation ;  hence  it 
will  be  wise  to  have  the  counselor  who  is  to  deal  with  the  graduates  an  eighth- 
grade  teacher,  while  the  other  counselors  may  be  teachers  of  lower  grades. 

Realizing  the  high  character  of  service  which  has  been  given  by  the 
present  group  of  vocational  counselors,  it  is  hoped  that  so  far  as  possible  they 
may  be  retained,  and  that  in  choosing  additional  counselors  the  principals  will 
bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  it  is  essential  to  the  success  of  our  undertaking  to 
have  only  those  who  are  keenly  interested  and  willing  to  give  of  their  time 
and  strength.  Aside  from  the  counselors,  all  principals  are  urged  to  attend 
the  meetings  whenever  possible  and  to  cooperate  in  every  way  possible. 

For  1914,  important  plans  looking  to  an  effective  enlargement  of  the 
counseling  service  have  been  adopted. 

From  the  standpoint  of  child  welfare  the  success  of  any  plan 
for  distributing  school  children  depends  upon  the  retention  of  a 
greater  number  of  children  in  educational  work.  The  success  is 
not  to  be  measured  in  terms  of  the  number  of  jobs  which  are  se- 
cured. From  the  standpoint  of  working  through  the  employers, 
little  help  can  be  expected  at  the  present  time.  Even  the  late 
apprenticeship  system  has  so  largely  disappeared  that  it  affords 
little  help  in  the  solution  of  vocational  training.  Another  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  a  rational  distribution  of  school  children  lies  in 
the  fact  that  we  have  insufficient  information  as  to  what  are  the 
skilled  and  unskilled  occupations.  Therefore  we  are  unprepared 
to  suggest  the  types  of  training  which  should  be  secured. 

In  Bulletin  No.  4  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Education 
(1914)  Meyer  Bloomfield  makes  an  important  and  suggestive 
statement.  In  view  of  the  failure  of  evening-school  classes  to 
answer  this  question  in  this  country  and  England,  his  statement 
may  be  regarded  as  applicable  to  the  New  York  City  situation. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  319 

The  most  immediate  problem  with  respect  to  these  children  is  not  an  ex- 
tension of  evening  training  facilities  so  much  as  it  is  a  thoroughgoing  scheme 
of  protection ;  not  the  acquisition  of  manual  skill,  as  it  is  the  conservation  of 
their  physical  and  moral  vitality.  Industry  holds  out  diminishing  educative 
possibilities.  In  the  majority  of  occupations,  indeed,  there  is  no  place  for 
apprenticeship.  Yet  service  to  an  individual  or  a  group  of  individuals  is 
none  the  less  valuable  because  it  fails  to  solve  the  problems  of  a  multitude 

(9)  What  methods  shall  be  purstied  to  prevent  the  possible  ex- 
ploitation of  children  f 

In  order  to  prevent  the  exploitation  of  children  many  methods 
have  been  suggested.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  school  can  reform 
industry,  but  if  the  educational  system  is  to  formulate  any  plan  for 
linking  itself  up  with  industry,  it  should  be  able  to  impress  upon 
employers  that  its  greatest  concern  is  in  the  educational  develop- 
ment of  the  juvenile  employees.  The  spirit  of  the  late  apprentice- 
ship system  may  possibly  be  revived.  Employers  must  receive 
through  proper  channels  information  as  to  their  responsibilities 
for  the  training  of  those  who,  through  economic  stress,  are  forced 
into  employment.  Some  plan  of  practical  cooperation  with  em- 
ployers should  be  devised  wherein  a  shortened  work  day  or  some 
other  concession  may  be  made  by  employers  for  the  purpose  of 
furthering  the  educational  development  of  their  employees. 

Bloomfield  again  states : 

Sooner  than  many  people  realize,  the  schools  will  be  required  definitely  to 
perform  some  of  the  functions  which  have  hitherto  been  distributed  among 
such  agencies  as  the  home  and  shop.  To  accomplish  this  the  schools  must 
undergo  changes,  as  they  have  already  changed  in  response  to  other  social 
demands  made  upon  them  for  a  generation  past.  Comprehensive  vocational 
assistance  through  specially  trained  teachers  and  others  must  become  a  part  of 
the  new  machinery  of  service  —  service  which  should  begin  in  the  elementary 
grades  and  continue  at  least  to  the  period  of  young  manhood  and  womanhood. 

The  question  of  parents  in  the  whole  plan  of  vocational  guid- 
ance has  not  been  dwelt  upon.  It  seems  patent  that  parental  co- 
operation must  be  secured  in  order  to  lessen  exploitation.  Parental 
cooperation  is  also  necessary  in  any  effective  plan  of  vocational 
guidance.  That  this  is  not  a  local  problem  is  obvious.  Parents 
exercise  too  little  influence  upon  intelligent  vocational  direction. 
Any  plan  to  prevent  exploitation  must  involve  some  measures 


320 

designed  to  awaken  a  greater  sense  of  responsibility  on  the  part  of 
parents.  This  can  be  done  through  an  organized  effort  to  bring 
the  school  into  closer  relation  with  the  parents  of  the  children 
during  the  entire  period  of  school  life. 

Some  placement  may  tend  to  facilitate  exploitation.  In  the 
language  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Labor : 

A  considerable  work  is  done  in  placing  students  who  are  ready  or  obliged 
to  leave  school,  although  both  teachers  and  committee  look  upon  this  as  a 
somewhat  subsidiary  branch  of  the  work.  It  is,  they  say,  but  a  comparatively 
small  number  who  need  help  of  this  kind.  For  the  larger  number  it  is  not  so 
much  that  they  need  help  in  securing  employment  as  that  they  need  advice  in 
wisely  selecting  their  work  and  oversight  in  working  out  their  vocational  aims. 

This  is  essential  to  lessen  exploitation. 

In  school  training  stress  should  be  placed  upon  those  occupa- 
tions which  are  likely  to  yield  a  decent  and  respectable  living 
during  the  adult  years.  While  the  economic  wage  should  not  be 
the  only  determining  factor,  it  is  a  reasonable  assumption  that 
skilled  work  requiring  more  advanced  training  is  likely  to  have 
a  higher  schedule. 

In  considering  methods  to  prevent  exploitation,  Mr.  Lovejoy 
urges  the  following: 

In  the  first  place,  to  increase  the  public-school  attendance  age  to  sixteen  years. 

2.  Provide  for  the  return  of  the  child  between  jobs  who  does  get  along  in 
his  employment  and  who  receives  a  certificate  for  employment.    This  will  do 
away  with  the  problem  of  truancy  and  unemployment. 

3.  Have  teachers  and  parents  trained  to  distinguish  between  vocation  and 
a  job  before  we  undertake  any  kind  of  placement  work. 

That  effective  work  in  this  line  can  be  secured  by  the  cooperation 
of  schools  and  employers  is  supported  by  the  view  of  Mr.  Tildsley. 

I  believe  in  the  long  run  the  schools  will  accomplish  the  best  results  through 
placement  work.  When  you  place  a  boy  with  a  manufacturer  and  the  manu- 
facturer reports,  you  then  have  the  proper  method  for  statistics  because  it  is 
based  on  actual  facts.'  It  seems  to  me  the  chief  value  of  the  placement  work 
is  the  recognition  of  the  schools  themselves  by  the  employers  of  our  boys  and 
girls ;  the  interest  of  these  people  would  be  aroused  in  our  schools  by  the  fact 
that  they  take  our  boys  and  girls  directly  from  the  schools.  That  can  only  be 
brought  when  the  employers  in  New  York  City  are  willing  to  take  a  more 
intelligent  interest  in  the  schools  than  they  do  at  present. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  321 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  who  believe  that  placement 
work  virtually  serves  to  exploit  children.  To  illustrate,  we  may 
quote  the  views  of  Miss  Barrows,  as  follows : 

There  are  about  40,000  children  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  years  of 
age  who  leave  elementary  school  and  go  to  work  every  year.  It  is  desirable 
for  these  children  if  it  means  that  they  are  going  to  advance  in  their  efficiency 
and  in  their  wage-earning  power  and  in  education.  The  point  is,  Do  they? 
They  will  if  they  get  the  kind  of  jobs  that  will  give  them  that  kind  of  ad- 
vancement. Children  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  years  of  age  cannot  get 
those  jobs  in  New  York  City.  The  placement  bureau  in  the  school  system 
for  elementary-school  children  is  simply  systematizing,  unconsciously,  the  ex- 
ploitation of  those  children.  I  should  think  there  certainly  would  be  a  place 
for  a  placement  bureau  for  graduates  of  technical  high  schools. 

The  problem  of  having  a  placement  bureau  for  graduates  of 
technical  schools  is  a  separate  problem  and  will  be  considered 
separately. 

There  is  one  vital  question  which  forces  itself  upon  our  minds. 
If  the  educational  system  makes  specific  efforts  to  induct  children 
into  industrial  life,  does  it  not  assume  a  moral  responsibility  in 
assisting  the  children  to  secure  specific  jobs  ?  At  one  of  the 
conferences  the  chairman  asked  the  following  question : 

If  we  can  grant  for  the  time  being  that  it  has  given  more  assistance  to  the 
boys  in  getting  them  specific  jobs,  does  not  the  school  stand  sponsor  when  it 
says,  "  There  is  a  job  for  you  "  ? 

The  reply  of  Mr.  Tildsley  was,  "  To  a  large  extent." 

This  view  seemed  to  have  general  support.  It  therefore  becomes 
apparent  that  the  responsibility  of  the  Board  of  Education  for  voca- 
tional guidance  demands  most  careful  consideration  so  that  it  may 
not  be  accused  of  assisting  in  the  exploitation  of  school  children. 

(10)    What  is  the  value  and  effect  of  vocational  scholarships? 

Among  the  numerous  devices  for  securing  rational  vocational 
guidance,  the  plan  of  vocational  scholarship  deserves  the  most 
serious  consideration.  Undoubtedly  the  selection  of  children 
obliged  to  leave  school  for  economic  reasons  and  the  paying  to 
their  families  of  a  weekly  wage  such  as  $3  a  week  presents  a 
practical  solution  of  the  problem  of  retaining  children  in  school 
for  a  longer  period  of  time. 


322  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  success  of  the  Committee  on  Vocational  Scholarship  of 
the  Henry  Street  Settlement,  as  presented  by  its  secretary,  Miss 
Brown,  is  most  commendable  and  suggestive.  On  this  basis  of 
vocational  scholarship  children  who  otherwise  would  have  entered 
into  unskilled  industry  were  given  two  additional  years  of  schooling 
along  definite  trade  lines.  The  committee  maintains  no  special 
employment  bureaus,  but  the  children  with  this  additional  training 
readily  secure  positions  through  normal  channels.  While  this  plan 
may  be  regarded  as  expensive  and  its  adoption  therefore  impractical 
at  the  present  time  by  this  school  system,  the  principle  involved 
warrants  thoughtful  study. 

Regarding  education  as  a  social  asset,  the  social  worth  of  the 
children  thus  aided  by  vocational  scholarships  far  exceeds  the  money 
involved.  The  estimation  of  education  in  terms  of  social  values 
and  results  may  at  some  time  have  an  appealing  force  to  the  com- 
munity. It  is  far  cheaper  to  pay  $250  for  the  special  training  of 
particularly  gifted  children  whose  limitations  are  only  those  of 
poverty  than  to  permit  their  potential  values  to  the  community 
to  be  sacrificed  through  a  lack  of  civic  interest  or  public  appreciation. 
The  development  of  one  inventor,  one  painter,  one  mechanical 
genius,  and  one  writer  represents  a  social  asset  that  far  overshadows 
the  incidental  loss  of  a  few  hundred  dollars  for  further  education. 
In  fact,  vocational  scholarships  represent  educational  investments 
whose  values  are  readily  ascertained  and  whose  dividends  go  to 
society  in  general. 

The  economic  advantage  of  educational  scholarships  is  supported 
by  the  figures  of  the  Massachusetts  Commission  on  Industrial 
Education,  which  indicated  that  the  child  who  goes  directly  into  a 
trade  after  leaving  a  grammar  school  is  capable  of  earning  less  than 
$400  at  eighteen  years  of  age,  while  the  child  who  has  attended  a 
trade  school  after  leaving  the  grammar  school  may  earn  $550. 
Throughout  life  the  trained  child  is  capable  of  adding  to  his  eco- 
nomic resources  to  a  much  larger  extent  than  is  the  child  whose 
educational  opportunities  have  been  limited.  The  underlying  prin- 
ciple of  vocational  scholarships  is  worth  emulation.  While  the 
Board  of  Education  may  not  feel  at  liberty  at  the  present  time  to 
advise  an  appropriation  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  vocational 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  323 

scholarships,  it  is  desirable  for  it  to  express  its  belief  in  the  sub- 
stance of  the  doctrine  and  invite  the  philanthropic-minded  to 
cooperate  with  it  in  extending  the  opportunity  of  vocational  scholar- 
ships to  specially  selected  children  who  would  otherwise  be  forced 
to  leave  the  public-school  system. 

( 1 1 )  What  shall  be  the  relation  of  vocational  guidance  to 
employment  agencies  f 

According  to  the  laws  of  the  state  of  New  York,  Chapter  700, 
1910,  the  term  "employment  agency"  means  and  includes  the 
business  of  conducting,  as  owner,  agent,  manager,  contractor,  sub- 
contractor or  in  any  other  capacity,  an  intelligence  office,  domestic 
and  commercial  employment  agency,  theatrical  employment  agency, 
general  employment  bureau,  shipping  agency,  nurses'  registry  or 
any  other  agency  or  office  for  the  purpose  of  procuring  or  attempt- 
ing to  procure  help  or  employment  or  engagements  for  persons 
seeking  employment  or  engagements  or  for  the  registration  of 
persons  seeking  such  help,  employment  or  engagement,  or  for 
giving  information  as  to  where  and  of  whom  such  help,  employ- 
ment or  engagement  may  be  procured,  where  a  fee  or  other  valu- 
able consideration  is  exacted,  or  attempted  to  be  collected  for  such 
services,  whether  such  business  is  conducted  in  a  building  or  on 
the  street  or  elsewhere. 

The  present  conception  of  vocational  guidance,  in  laying  special 
stress  upon  placement,  virtually  places  the  school  system  in  the 
position  of  an  employment  agency,  though,  to  be  sure,  no  fees  are 
charged.  It  is  exceedingly  doubtful  whether  the  school  should  be 
regarded  in  the  nature  of  an  employment  agency,  even  though  in- 
ducting children  into  life  be  part  of  the  problem  of  education.  The 
actual  steps  leading  to  employment  are  not  distinctively  those  of  the 
school  system.  There  are  very  many  other  agencies  which  must  be 
brought  into  such  a  scheme  for  placing  children  in  actual  positions. 
The  whole  scheme  of  placement  involves  the  relation  of  vocational 
guidance  to  employment  agencies.  The  most  recent  expression  of 
thoughtful  views  as  to  the  relation  of  schools  to  employment  agencies 
is  afforded  in  some  quotations  from  the  report  of  Meyer  Bloomfield 
on  "  The  School  and  the  Start  in  Life,"  United  States  Bureau  of 
Education,  Bulletin  No.  4,  1914  : 


324  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Any  scheme  of  vocational  service  which  does  not  in  some  way  come  in  direct 
contact  with  the  problems  connected  with  the  actual  start  in  life  of  youth  is  in 
danger  of  finding  itself  an  unreal  undertaking,  busied  with  lifeless  abstractions 
regarding  shadowy  beings,  instead  of  men,  women,  and  children. 

Workers  in  the  fields  of  vocational  education  and  guidance,  therefore, 
whether  they  be  in  vocational  schools,  labor  exchanges,  advisory  committees,  or 
vocational-guidance  enterprises,  are  expected  to  face  their  task  from  two  stand- 
points when  helping  young  people  to  a  start  in  life.  They  are  forced,  necessa- 
rily, to  deal  with  the  working  world  as  they  find  it,  and  they  are  equally  obligated 
to  illumine  their  work  with  an  ideal  of  what  ought  to  be  the  conditions.  A  knowl- 
edge of  existing  conditions  is  the  foundation  of  the  daily  personal  service  which  a 
vocational  agency  is  called  upon  to  render ;  but  without  the  corrective  of  a  social 
vision  any  vocational  scheme,  whatever  may  be  its  immediate  practical  benefits, 
can  hardly  be  regarded  as  an  important  instrument  of  human  conservation. 

Vocational  service  — both  guidance  and  training  are  here  included  —  is 
an  instrument  for  talent  saving,  and  for  interpreting  school  life  in  terms 
of  career  building. 

The  question  arises  as  to  whether  the  public-school  system  would  best  under- 
take alone  to  deal  with  the  start  in  vocation  or  leave  it  to  other  agencies,  while 
reserving  for  itself  the  task  of  providing  for  needs  which  arise  in  the  course 
of  employment,  such  as  further  training  opportunities.  It  is  submitted  that  the 
schools  will  have  to  concern  themselves,  actively  and  dominantly,  with  every 
phase  of  the  vocational  start  in  life.  Is  the  average  school  system  ready  to 
undertake  this  new  and  enormously  difficult  business?  It  is  not.  Indeed,  so 
little  is  it  prepared  to  do  this  work  at  the  present  time  that  hasty  undertaking 
of  it  would  probably  indicate  a  lack  of  understanding.  It  is  doubtful,  in  the 
first  place,  if  a  school  department  can  alone  effectively  organize  the  labor  market 
for  young  workers.  On  the  whole,  experience  seems  to  support  the  proposition 
that  the  school  system  is  not  the  most  suitable  agency  to  attempt  the  organi- 
zation of  the  labor  market  for  the  young,  and  the  correlative  proposition,  that 
the  carrying  on  of  juvenile  employment  agencies  without  control  over  them 
by  the  school  is  not  in  the  best  interests  of  the  children. 

The  public  school  must  remember  the  fact  that  it  is  primarily  an  educational 
institution  with  social  aims.  What  a  century  of  child-welfare  effort  and  exper- 
ience has. taught  the  friends  of  working  children,  the  schools  can,  least  of  all, 
afford  to  ignore.  More  than  any  other  institution,  the  school  must  stand  for 
a  high  minimum  of  protection  for  all  children.  It  is  not  to  the  credit  of  our 
schools  that,  on  the  whole,  they  have  been  unaware  of  a  situation  which  many 
an  employer  has  known  for  some  time,  and  this  is,  the  economic  uselessness 
of  children  from  fourteen  to  sixteen.  Schools  have  sometimes  been  willing  to 
plunge  into  small  or  large  employment  schemes  as  if  full-time  work  were  the 
right  thing  for  growing  children. 

There  are  three  distinct  aspects  of  the  problem  of  adolescent  employment : 
the  educational,  economic,  and  social.  Through  extension  of  vocational-training 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  325 

opportunities,  and  especially  through  the  provision  for  prevocational  schools, 
which,  when  their  purposes  are  better  understood,  will  become  self-discovery 
schools,  and  as  such  afford  young  people  and  their  teachers  a  most  important 
basis  for  vocational  guidance,  the  schools  are  beginning  to  deal  with  the  first 
of  the  three  aspects  named. 

The  greatest  difficulty  in  dealing  with  the  boy  who  is  about  to  leave  school 
for  work  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  regards  himself  as  a  worker  who  has  outgrown 
the  learner.  Not  until  disastrous  experience  has  overtaken  many  of  these 
children  do  they  begin  to  realize  how  much  a  learning  attitude  would  have 
meant  in  building  a  career.  A  large  part  of  this  difficulty  is  due  to  leaving  the 
question  of  the  boy's  future  unconsidered  until  school-leaving  time. 

We  need  to  write  into  the  law  establishing  labor  offices  that  a  juvenile  depart- 
ment shall  be  managed  by  a  central  executive  committee  appointed  by  the 
school  system,  which  committee  shall  be  made  up  of  school  people,  employers, 
social  workers,  and  employees,  to  advise  as  to  the  school  vocational  guidance 
and  training  activities  on  the  one  hand,  and  manage  the  occupational  research 
and  placement  supervision  activities  of  the  labor  bureau  on  the  other.  This 
committee  should  be  empowered,  through  health  officers  and  other  trained 
specialists,  to  study  children ;  to  take  them  out  of  work  places,  if  need  be ; 
and  through  scientific  investigations  to  list  occupations  from  the  viewpoint  of 
opportunity  as  well  as  their  manifold  reactions  on  the  worker.  Children  under 
sixteen  are  to  be  under  training,  part  time  at  least,  and  until  the  public  is 
ready  to  care  for  their  entire  fourteen-  to  sixteen-year  period. 

Contemplating  this  point  of  view,  one  must  consider  the  opinions 
of  some  of  the  workers  in  this  city  who  have  given  thought  to  this 
phase  of  the  matter.  In  some  schools  there  is  cooperation  between 
the  vocational-guidance  counselor  and  some  existing  employment 
agency.  In  sharing  the  responsibility  with  the  employment  agency,  it 
is  desirable  to  have  connection  with  an  agency  that  investigates  em- 
ployments to  a  sufficient  extent  to  safeguard  prospective  employees. 

Dr.  Rowe's  experience  leads  him  to  say : 

I  think  the  advisory  work  as  to  what  work  to  take  up  in  life,  what  field 
should  be  covered,  should  really  belong  to  the  school,  but  if  you  have  a  well- 
organized  and  equipped  bureau,  such  as  the  Alliance  Employment  Bureau  is, 
it  would  be  very  desirable  to  use  its  services  as  we  have.  Our  results  seem  to 
indicate  that  it  should  be  continued. 

Mr.  Weaver  draws  attention  to  the  experience  of  cities  where  coop- 
eration placement  has  been  instituted  to  some  extent.  In  his  words, 

This  placement  work  for  the  schools  is  done  under  the  supervision  of  the 
Board  of  Trade,  and  they  cooperate  directly  with  the  schools,  so  that  the  schools 


326  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

make  their  prescriptions  and  send  those  to  the  general  placement  agency  of  the 
city,  which  is  managed  by  the  Board  of  Trade,  and  as  far  as  Liverpool  and 
Edinburgh  are  concerned  the  educational  authorities  have  a  special  department 
maintained  for  that  purpose,  just  for  the  handling  of  young  people.  So  that 
while  the  school  makes  the  prescription  and  gives  the  advice,  the  carrying  out 
or  filling  of  that  prescription,  as  it  were,  is  done  through  this  general  public, 
legally  authorized  placement  agency  for  the  city. 

In  a  recent  Report  of  Public  Employment  Exchanges  issued 
by  the  City  Club,  we  learn  : 

The  function  of  the  Wisconsin  Industrial  Commission  includes  doing  "  all 
in  its  power  to  bring  together  employers  seeking  employees  and  working  people 
seeking  employment."  It  is  also  to  "  aid  in  inducing  minors  to  undertake  promis- 
ing skilled  employments."  The  offices  have  attempted  to  guide  boys  into  the 
less  crowded  and  better-paying  positions,  but  recommend  that  a  vocational 
bureau  be  established  to  pay  special  attention  to  the  needs  of  juvenile  applicants. 

These  further  quotations  from  the  same  report  give  more  light 
upon  the  relation  which  is  felt  to  exist  between  schools  and 
employment  agencies : 

In  Edinburgh,  for  instance,  a  division  of  work  has  been  arrived  at  by  the 
labor  exchange  and  the  school  board  by  which  the  latter  furnishes  the  advice 
and  the  former  finds  the  situations,  an  officer  of  the  labor  exchange  occupying 
a  room  in  the  school-board  building  to  facilitate  the  interchange  of  information. 

In  discussing  the  functions  and  methods  of  the  German  public  employment 
bureaus,  the  Munich  Municipal  Exchange  has  been  chosen,  as  it  is  said  by 
Mr.  W.  H.  Beveridge  to  be  fairly  illustrative  of  the  German  exchanges 
(W.  H.  Beveridge,  "  Unemployment,  a  Problem  of  Industry,"  pp.  239  seq.). 

The  objects  of  the  Munich  office  are  (i)  to  put  employers  and  employees 
(especially  those  engaged  in  industry,  commerce,  or  domestic  service,  casual 
labor,  and  apprentices)  into  communication,  with  a  view  to  employment ;  and 
(2)  to  supply  as  far  as  possible  information  on  all  questions  concerning  work- 
men and  conditions  of  the  employment. 

There  is  a  special  section  for  apprentices.  Boys  and  girls  in  elementary 
schools  are  told  of  the  exchange  a  few  months  before  they  leave,  and  they  are 
given  time  off  to  visit  it  and  are  encouraged  to  register.  As  a  result  most  of 
them  have  completed  all  arrangements  for  work  before  they  leave  school. 

The  exchange  finds  places  outside  of  the  city  and  even  outside  of  Ger- 
many. In  1906  about  10,000  out  of  a  total  of  50,000  positions  found  were 
"externals."  Workmen  sent  to  places  over  25  km.  (15  miles)  distance  are 
allowed,  on  presentation  of  a  certificate  from  the  exchange,  to  ride  on  the 
state  railways  for  half  price. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  327 

That  this  employment  exchange  is  recognized  as  being  of  serious 
importance  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  in  Germany  the  Social 
Democrats  in  their  municipal  platforms  are  demanding  municipal 
vocational  bureaus  ;  these  are  intended  to  serve  the  schools,  which 
have  no  economic  outlook,  and  the  labor  bureaus,  which  have  no 
educational  contact.  As  stated  by  Mr.  Bloomfield  at  the  Grand 
Rapids  Conference,  to  quote  from  Mr.  Gruenberg's  report : 

These  bureaus  should  bridge  the  gap  between  the  school  and  the  job  on 
the  one  hand,  and  between  the  elementary  school  and  the  continuation  school 
on  the  other.  There  have  already  been  established  parents'  consultation  hours. 
They  use  statistical  materials  gathered  for  various  purposes  and  have  applied 
them  to  the  problems  of  occupational  adjustment.  The  information  is  made 
available  to  parents,  teacher,  employers,  and  workers. 

Mr.  Brumbaugh,  in  advocating  the  appointment  of  a  director 
of  vocational  education,  referred  to  one  phase  of  the  work  as 
follows : 

The  school  can  also  place  this  director  of  vocational  education  in  such  a 
relation  to  the  outgoing  child  as  to  advise  him  concerning  the  best  possible 
relation  to  his  wage-earning  career.  This  is  the  function  usually  referred  to  as 
the  bureau  of  vocational  guidance.  The  individual  who  supervises  vocational 
education  in  the  schools  is  best  fitted  to  advise  the  child  on  leaving  school  con- 
cerning the  type  of  activity  he  should  undertake.  The  two  places,  therefore, 
really  resolve  themselves  into  one,  and  the  office  for  which  I  am  asking  would 
conserve  both  these  important  functions. 

Philadelphia  certainly  needs,  for  its  thousand  of  outgoing  boys 
and  girls,  some  wise  person,  skilled  in  the  industrials,  in  intimate 
relation  with  the  great  manufacturing  establishments  of  the  city, 
and  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  educational  career  of  the  child, 
to  advise  each  outgoing  individual  pupil  just  how  best  to  link 
himself  with  the  industries  of  the  city. 

The  form  of  organization  in  Philadelphia  has  been  the  establish- 
ment of  a  Vocational  Bureau  whose  purpose,  according  to  the 
statement  of  the  City  Superintendent,  would  be  to  know  - 

(1)  The  capabilities  and  aptitudes  of  the  pupils  at  the  time  they  leave  school ; 

(2)  The  form  of  training  they  have  had  in  school ; 

(3)  The  types  of  industrial  occupations  promising  the  largest  return  for  good 
to  the  individual.    This  carries  with  it 


328  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

(a)  A  knowledge  of  the  several  employers  of  labor,  to  the  end  that  only 
those  who  endeavor  to  deal  fairly  and  helpfully  by  their  employees  should  be 
allowed  to  receive  the  assistance  of  the  bureau ; 

(b)  Such  utilization  of  (the  school  system's)  agents  and  the  service  of  accred- 
ited volunteer  organizations  willing  to  cooperate,  as  to  visit  the  employees  cer- 
tified by  the  bureau  at  their  homes  and,  by  counsel  and  admonition,  give 
them  such  an  ordered  and  studious  life  as  to  make  possible  for  them  at  the 
beginning  of  their  wage-earning  careers  to  live  modestly,  morally,  and  econom- 
ically ;  thus  securing  to  the  employer  an  increasingly  desirable  worker  and  to 
society  an  increasingly  desirable  citizen. 

Apparently  the  main  work  of  vocational  guidance  must  be  done 
previous  to  the  contact  with  the  employment  agencies.  The  school 
system  itself  should  not  constitute  itself  a  mere  employment  agency. 
The  dearth  of  information  regarding  industries  and  the  various 
positions  thereof  is  such  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  effective  and 
thorough  placement  on  the  part  of  the  teacher.  Some  plan  must 
be  devised  whereby  the  responsibilities  of  the  school  will  be  defined 
and  methods  of  cooperation  between  the  schools  and  some  type  of 
employment  agency  be  developed.  Probably  the  best  results  will 
accrue  from  the  organization  of  a  new  type  of  vocational  service 
bureau  such  as  that  suggested  by  Mr.  Bloomfield. 

It  is  unnecessary  at  this  time  to  describe  in  detail  the  systems 
of  cooperation  existent  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Germany,  but 
suffice  it  to  say  that  numerous  plans  are  being  tried  in  these 
countries  which  merit  careful  study  before  any  scheme  of  organi- 
zation is  evolved.  It  is  sufficient  at  this  time  to  call  attention  to 
a  quotation  from  a  circular  of  the  Board  of  Education  in  London 
with  reference  to  the  exercise  of  powers  under  the  Education 
(Choice  of  Employment)  Act,  1910: 

In  the  opinion  of  the  board  it  is  of  the  first  importance  that  in  urban  areas 
and,  where  possible,  in  county  areas,  local  education  authorities  should  take  the 
opportunity  afforded  by  the  act  of  initiating  such  work  where  it  is  not  at  present 
carried  on,  of  coordinating  and  organizing  the  existing  voluntary  agencies  in  a 
single  coherent  scheme,  and  of  linking  the  whole  with  the  work  of  the  juvenile 
departments  of  labor  exchanges  in  such  a  way  that  the  moral  and  educational 
influences,  which  naturally  center  round  elementary  schools  and  continuation 
schools,  should  play  their  proper  part  in  the  transition  from  school  life  to  the 
life  of  adult  employment. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  329 

PLACEMENT 

Unfortunately,  in  the  minds  of  many  vocational  guidance  is 
summed  up  in  the  single  word  "placement."  This  idea  is  totally 
erroneous.  Placement  or  the  placing  of  children  in  vocational 
work  for  which  wages  are  to  be  received  has  been  given  too  much 
attention.  Placement  is  the  last  phase  of  vocational  guidance  en- 
titled to  consideration.  As  the  most  evident  thing  which  could  be 
done,  it  has  received  more  than  its  warranted  consideration  without 
regard  to  its  relations  to  the  entire  problem.  The  main  thought 
in  the  minds  of  many  dealing  with  vocational  guidance  is  that 
placement  is  the  end  and  aim  of  vocational  guidance.  This  view 
falls  far  short  of  the  truth.  Placement  should  be  relegated  to  its 
proper  place  in  the  scheme  of  vocational  guidance  and  not  be 
permitted  to  dominate  the  field  of  thought. 

In  our  own  public-school  system  there  has  been  considerable 
work  done  by  teachers  in  our  high  schools  in  the  interests  of  place- 
ment. Before  discussing  the  nature  of  placement,  it  is  well  to  con- 
sider the  well-intentioned  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  many  volunteer 
teachers  who  have  endeavored  to  follow  out  principles  of  placement 
in  so  far  as  they  were  able  in  the  light  of  their  training,  general 
education,  knowledge  of  industries,  and  sympathy  with  the  children. 
In  order  to  ascertain  the  status  of  placement  in  the  high  schools 
of  our.  cities,  the  following  letter  was  written  to  the  principals  of 
the  high  schools : 

DEAR  SIR: 

The  Committee  on  High  and  Training  Schools  is  investigating  the  subject 
of  vocational  guidance  and  desires  the  following  information  regarding  place- 
ment work,  if  any  is  being  attempted  in  your  school : 

1 .  Who  are  placement  teachers  ? 

2.  Do  they  keep  written  records? 

3.  How  many  children  do  they  place  each  year? 

4.  Do  they  aim  to  place  all  children  or  are  they  interested  in  placing  only 
the  brightest  or  more  promising  children  ? 

5.  Is  there  any  discrimination  in  placement  work  with  regard  to  color  ? 

6.  Is  there  any  follow-up  system  to  ascertain  whether  children  retain  the 
positions  in  which  they  have  been  placed? 


330  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

7.  If  children  fail  to  retain  the  first  position  in  which  they  are  placed,  does 
the  placement  worker  seek  to  secure  another  position  for  them  ? 

8.  Are  there  any  available  figures  to  indicate  the  success  or  failure  of  your 
placement  work  ?    If  so,  of  what  nature  ? 

Thanking  you  for  the  courtesy  of  an  early  reply, 

Yours  sincerely 
IRA  S.  WILE 

A  tabulation  of  the  responses  to  each  question,  with  the  exception 
of  number  one,  is  as  follows  : 

Do  they  keep  written  records  ? 
Curtis  High  School :  Yes 
Eastern  District :  No 
Manual  Training :  No 
Washington  Irving :  Yes 

High  School  of  Commerce :  First  detailed  record  now  simpler.  Special  study 
Newtown :  No  system 
Richmond  Hill :  No 
Jamaica  High :  No 
Commercial :  Yes 
Bushwick:  Yes 
Bryant:  Yes 
Wadleigh :  Yes 
Stuyvesant :  No  answer 

Boys' :  Yes ;  time  required  to  get  it  in  shape  to  present  it 
Far  Rockaway :  Card  index 
Flushing:  No 

Vocational  School  for  Boys :  Yes 
Girls' :  Occasional  record 
Bay  Ridge :  No 
Manhattan  Trade :  Careful  records 

How  many  children  do  they  place  each  year? 
Curtis :  25  or  more 
Eastern  District :  No  idea 
Manual  Training :   1 2  on  an  average 
Washington  Irving :   182 
Commerce:   100  to  150 
Newtown :  40 
Richmond  Hill:   10  or  12 
Jamaica 

Commercial :  300  and  400  ;  200  graduates,  rest  boys  compelled  to  drop  out 
Bushwick :   1 5 
Bryant :  Average  50 
Wadleigh:  4 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  331 

Stuyvesant :  60 

Boys' 

Far  Rockaway :   1 2  to  20 

Flushing 

Vocational  School  for  boys 

Girls' :  Approximately  1 2 

Bay  Ridge 

Manhattan  Trade :  All  who  complete  course  and  need  assistance 

Do  they  aim  to  place  all  children  or  are  they  interested  in  placing  only  the 

brightest  or  most  promising  children  ? 
Curtis :  All  worthy 
Eastern  District :  Any  pupil  he  can 
Manual  Training :  Any  worthy 
Washington  Irving :  All  who  apply 

Commerce :  All  who  apply.  Better  and  more  promising  far  exceed  the  supply 
Newtown :  Preference  to  poor  but  deserving  students 
Richmond  Hill :  All ;  no  discrimination 
Jamaica :  Recommend  all,  but  brightest  are  speedily  placed 
Commercial :  Preference  to  most  worthy 

Bushwick :  Preference  to  those  obliged  to  leave  school.    No  recommenda- 
tions to  those  without  satisfactory  records 
Bryant :  All  who  apply 
Wadleigh :  No  discrimination 
Stuyvesant 

Boys' :  No  discrimination 
Far  Rockaway :  No  discrimination 
Flushing 

Vocational  School  for  Boys 

Girls' :  Does  not  aim  to  place  all  nor  thc^se  most  promising 
Bay  Ridge 
Manhattan  Trade 

Is  there  any  discrimination  in  placement  work  with  regard  to  color  f 

Curtis:  No 

Eastern  District :  No 

Manual  Training :  No 

Washington  Irving :  No.  Most  take  dressmaking,  no  difficulty  in  placing 
them.  Only  i  or  2  take  commercial  course  and  they  have  been  placed 

Commerce :  No 

Newtown :  No 

Richmond  Hill :  No 

Jamaica 

Commercial :  No,  negligible  number.  (Jews  discriminated  against.  40  to  50 
per  cent  in  school.  Can't  place  as  soon  or  as  well  as  Gentiles.  Inquiries 
of  Jewish  firms  contain  the  requirement  "  must  be  Christian  ") 


332  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Bushwick :  No 
Bryant:  No 
Wadleigh :  No 
Stuyvesant:  No 
Boys' :  None  applied 
Far  Rockaway :  No 
Flushing 

Vocational  School  for  Boys :  Difficulty  in  placing  them 
Girls' :  No  color  line 
Bay  Ridge :  No 

Manhattan  Trade  School :  No,  but  trade  discrimination  very  strong.    Diffi- 
culty in  placing  them    ' 

Is  there  any  follow-up  system  to  ascertain   whether  children   retain  the 
positions  in  which  they  have  been  placed? 

Curtis:  Yes 

Eastern  District :  No 

Manual  Training :  No 

Washington  Irving :  Yes 

Commerce :  Not  comprehensive 

Newtown :  No 

Richmond  Hill :  No  formal  system 

Jamaica 

Commercial :  Yes 

Bushwick :  Yes 

Bryant:  Yes 

Wadleigh :  Yes,  operate  hereafter 

Stuyvesant 

Boys' :  Pupils  requested  to  notify  if  position  is  not  suited,  and  employers  if 

pupils  do  not  make  good 
Far  Rockaway :  Yes 
Flushing 

Vocational  School  for  Boys 
Girls':  No 
Manhattan  Trade 

If  children  fail  to  retain  the  first  position  in  which  they  are  placed,  does  the 

placement  worker  seek  to  secure  another  position  for  them  ? 
Curtis  :  Attempt  is  made 
Eastern  District:   If  possible 
Manual  Training :  Yes 
Washington  Irving :  Yes 
Commerce :  Yes 
Newtown 
Richmond  Hill :  Yes 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  333 

Jamaica 

Commercial :  Yes.    Until  seventy  times  seven 

Bushwick :  Yes,  if  fault  is  not  directly  the  pupil's 

Bryant:  Yes,  if  fault  is  not  directly  the  pupil's 

Wadleigh :  If  possible 

Stuyvesant 

Boys' :  Yes,  if  fault  is  not  pupil's 

Far  Rockaway :  Yes 

Flushing 

Vocational  School  for  Boys 

Girls':  Yes 

Bay  Ridge 

Manhattan  Trade 

Are  there  any  available  figures  to  indicate  the  success  or  failure  of  y out 

placement  work?  ffso,  of  what  nature? 
Curtis :  Few  figures 
Eastern  District :  No 
Manual  Training :  No 
Washington  Irving 
Commerce :  No 

Newtown :  Failures,  less  than  10  per  cent;  success,  none 
Richmond  Hill :  No 
Jamaica 
Commercial 
Bushwick :  No 

Bryant :  Yes ;  records  kept  open  for  inspection 
Wadleigh 

Stuyvesant  • 

Boys' :  Yes,  but  considerable  time  required  to  get  them  in  presentable  shape 
Far  Rockaway:  Yes 
Flushing 

Vocational  School  for  Boys 
Girls' :  No 
Bay  Ridge :  No 
Manhattan  Trade 

From  a  consideration  of  the  figures  above  presented  there  are 
a  number  of  objections  which  may  be  raised  against  placement  as 
at  present  conducted. 

I 

The  scheme  of  placement  as  at  present  organized  is  essentially 
undemocratic.  All  children  desiring  positions  cannot  be  placed, 
nor  indeed  can  opportunities  be  found  for  them.  The  school 


334  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

becomes  a  party  to  discriminations  for  which  industry  is  responsible. 
There  are  discriminations  because  of  religion,  because  of  color, 
because  of  differences  in  mental  power.  There  are  discriminations 
because  of  economic  stress  which  requires  some  children  to  leave 
high  schools  previous  to  graduation.  If  placement  be  organized 
on  the  theory  that  it  is  part  of  the  function  of  a  school  system  to 
introduce  children  into  vocational  employment,  equal  opportunity 
should  be  afforded  to  all  children.  The  school  should  not  be  obliged 
to  be  selective  in  its  action. 

If  placement  is  a  school  function,  it  should  be  work  carried  on 
in  the  interests  of  the  school  children  and  not  in  behalf  of  the 
employers.  That  discriminations  are  made  in  favor  of  boys  and 
girls  who  are  bright  in  school  work  and  evidence  their  competence 
in  this  way  is  evident ;  for  example,  from  the  answer  of  Mr.  Tildsley 
to  the  following  question  of  the  chairman  : 

Taking  the  two  boys  side  by  side,  the  competent  and  the  incompetent,  don't 
you  think  the  incompetent  requires  placement  help  more  than  the  competent  ? 

In  answer  to  this  Mr.  Tildsley  stated  : 

He  does  require  placement  help  more  than  the  competent,  but  I  believe  the 
school  system  does  a  service  to  the  employer  by  furnishing  him  the  more 
competent.  It  is  our  duty  to  the  employer  to  furnish  him  wherever  possible 
a  competent  helper. 

They  should  place  all  they  can,  but  they  only  will  place  the  most  competent. 
Any  placement  agency  will  find  it  easier  to  find  an  employer  for  a  competent 
boy ;  the  competent  boy  will  deserve  more. 

The  same  answer  indicates  a  feeling  that  placement  is  in  the 
interests  of  the  employer  rather  than  of  the  boy.  This  is  also 
accentuated  by  the  statement  of  Mr.  Raynor : 

The  employer  has  a  perfect  right  to  insist  upon  having  such  employees  as 
he  wishes,  even  though  his  wishes  may  be  fanatical. 

In  answer  to  the  question  of  the  chairman,  "  What  would  you 
do  with  regard  to  the  placement  of  incompetents  who  leave  the 
high  school  ?"  Mr.  Tildsley  made  the  following  statement : 

I  would  not  place  an  incompetent.  I  do  not  believe  that  social  efficiency 
requires  the  placement  of  incompetents  until  the  competents  are  placed.  I  think 
if  the  boys  find  that  they  cannot  obtain  a  place  because  they  are  incompetent 
most  of  them  would  make  a  greater  effort  to  be  competent. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  335 

The  Employment  Committee  of  the  High  School  Teachers' 
Association  of  New  York  City  deems  its  functions  to  be  as  follows  : 

To  collect  information  regarding  opportunities  for  profitable  and  permanent 
employment  for  the  graduates  of  the  high  schools  of  New  York  City. 

To  advise  graduates  and  other  students  of  these  schools  in  regard  to  the 
selection  of  suitable  vocations. 

To  assist  pupils  who  are  partly  or  wholly  dependent  upon  their  own  effort 
for  their  support  to  secure  employment  during  vacations. 

To  prepare,  for  the  use  of  employers,  lists  of  suitable  persons  by  the  aid  of 
which  help  may  be  selected. 

Here  again  one  sees  that  the  view  of  placement  assumed  is  that 
of  finding  a  job  largely  with  a  view  to  satisfying  employers.  While 
it  may  be  a  fanciful  analogy,  it  would  not  be  unfair  to  state  that, 
if  the  proper  vocation  for  girls  is  marriage  and  the  maintenance 
of  a  home,  it  is  a  legitimate  function  for  high  schools  to  conduct 
a  matrimonial  agency.  If  equal  opportunity  is  to  be  given  to  all 
children  to  secure  positions,  then  all  children  should  have  an  equal 
opportunity  for  placement  and  the  selection  by  the  school  of  the 
child  should  have  as  a  correlative  proposition  the  selection  of  the 
job  for  the  child.  At  the  present  time  it  is  largely  a  case  of  finding 
a  child  for  the  job. 

II 

Placement  work  is  distinctly,  as  at  present  conducted,  uneduca- 
tional.  The  present  tendency  apparently  is  to  find  jobs  and  not 
vocations  ;  an  immediate  position,  not  a  life's  work.  The  stress  is 
placed  upon  monetary  returns  and  not  upon  the  educational  train- 
ing which  may  be  possible.  This  is  evidenced  by  the  statements 
of  Mr.  Hartwell : 

I  would  like  to  hand  to  the  chairman  a  little  statement  of  what  I  got  up  in 
regard  to  the  pupils  who  in  fourteen  months  have  earned  $47,000  while  they 
have  been  in  school.  ...  It  makes  little  difference  whether  boys  change  from 
one  job  to  another.  I  am  sure  many  of  the  pupils  are  better  by  changing.  I 
want  to  help  just  as  many  boys  and  girls  as  possible  while  I  am  in  this  system, 
and  we  have  proved  by  statistics  that  in  this  one  school  the  boys  and  girls  have 
earned  $47,000  in  fourteen  months. 

In  answer  to  the  question  of  the  chairman,  "  What  has  been  the 
educational  benefit,  considering  this  matter  as  a  problem  for  an  edu- 
cational institution  ? "  Mr.  Hartwell  answered,  "To  earn  is  to  learn." 


336  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

It  must  be  remembered  that  even  with  superior  training  and 
capability,  it  often  becomes  necessary  for  individuals  to  enter  into 
occupations  with  low  wage  returns  in  order  to  become  familiar  with 
the  details  of  work  which  are  essential  to  ability  to  command  the 
higher  wage.  For  the  schools  to  consider  positions  in  terms  of  the 
immediate  monetary  returns  constitutes  a  failure  to  place  a  propei 
value  upon  the  educational  training  which  is  to  be  secured  through 
industrial  life. 

While  it  is  true  that  there  are  many  boys  in  high  schools  who 
cannot  remain  to  graduate  and  still  would  need  assistance  through 
placement,  to  maintain  the  precedent  of  placing  nongraduates  would 
lead  many  graduates  of  elementary  schools  to  enter  high  schools 
simply  because  of  the  advantage  of  securing  this  type  of  assistance. 
Such  a  condition  of  affairs  would  lead  to  increased  congestion  of 
our  high  schools  during  the  first  year,  with  an  increased  mortality 
during  the  first  two  years.  There  are  many  who  do  not  entertain 
this  idea  of  the  function  of  placement,  whose  views  may  be  stated 
in  the  words  of  Mr.  Gruenberg : 

But  the  idea  embodied  in  this  proposition  is  that  the  public  schools  are  to 
hold  on  to  the  child  until  he  is  fit  to  do  something  in  particular  and  not  simply 
until  he  feels  he  must  go  to  work.  The  question  of  placement,  however,  is  a 
systematic  procedure  of  our  machinery,  so  that  there  will  be  some  preparation 
for  placement  as  they  leave  the  grammar  schools,  and  most  of  those  who  leave 
the  grammar  school  are  not  prepared  for  definite  placement ;  they  are  prepared 
for  guidance  in  finding  the  kind  of  work  in  which  they  are  likely  to  succeed. 

The  question  still  remains  whether  the  schools  can  place  40,000,  20,000,  or 
10,000  children  every  year  in  jobs  that  have  educational  opportunities  without 
establishing  some  form  of  part-time  or  continuation  school.  As  investigations 
have  shown  that  there  are  not  a  lot  of  jobs,  placement  comes  to  be  of  special 
advantage  to  those  who  are  already  so  fortunate  as  to  have  the  additional  edu- 
cation that  high  schools  give,  or  the  individual  endowments  that  enable  them 
to  carry  a  job  and  continue  their  education  at  the  same  time. 

I  wish  to  call  attention  also  to  the  fact  that  the  Commercial  High  School 
students  who  have  gone  to  the  higher  positions  open  in  the  business  world  are 
students  who  are  graduates  of  the  vocational  school.  They  are  not  students 
who  have  to  leave  because  they  want  a  job  right  away.  If  work  is  good  for  the 
child,  I  should  claim  that  work  under  the  supervision  of  school  people  is  more 
wholesome  than  work  under  the  supervision  of  the  foreman  who  treats  children 
not  as  social  assets  but  as  industrial  instruments.  The  question  resolves  itself 
into  this :  To  what  extent  is  placement  work  educational  ?  Changing  jobs  is 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  337 

educational,  but  drifting  is  not  educational ;  it  is  demoralizing.  It  is  just  as 
demoralizing  for  a  boy  to  go  into  four  or  five  jobs  a  year,  none  of  which  leads 
to  anything,  as  to  sit  in  school  and  learn  nothing. 

In  regard  to  the  Manhattan  Trade  School  for  Girls,  the  I5th 
Annual  Report  of  the  City  Superintendent  contains  the  following 
statement : 

Since  the  school  has  found  a  year  of  training  to  be  the  minimum  with  which 
it  can  recommend  girls  for  placement  in  the  trades  for  which  it  trains,  it  would 
be  obviously  unfair  to  place  them  with  less,  and  would  encourage  them  to  leave 
school  before  completing  their  course.  The  knowledge  that  the  school  will 
endeavor  to  find  positions  for  girls  at  the  end  of  their  year  has  placed  a 
premium  on  achieving  the  standards  set  by  the  school,  and  raised  the  tone  of 
the  entire  school  work. 

Recognizing  the  difference  of  placement  work  in  a  technical 
trade  school  and  in  the  ordinary  high  school,  it  is  only  fair  to  con- 
sider what  educational  values  are  believed  to  exist  in  placement 
as  organized  at  the  Manhattan  Trade  School. 

From  an  educational  point  of  view  the  work  of  the  placement  department 
is  of  great  importance.  Its  effect  on  the  school's  training  may  be  summarized 
as  follows : 

a.  It  enables  the  school  to  keep  in  constant  touch  with  the  supply  and  de- 
mand of  workers  in  various  trades,  and  with  opportunities  for  advancement. 

b.  It  serves  as  a  continual  check  upon  the  methods  used  in  training  girls  for 
trades.    Criticism  from  employers  and  girls'  reports  of  weak  places  in  their  prep- 
aration are  of  the  greatest  value  in  keeping  the  school  out  of  ruts  and  up  to  date. 

c.  It  gives  a  perfectly  definite  purpose  and  aim  to  the  school  work,  and  saves 
it  from  going  off  into  all  kinds  of  by-paths.    It  is  a  perpetual  measuring  rod 
for  gauging  the  school's  efficiency. 

d.  It  makes  discipline  a  matter  of  little  significance,  and  gives  every  girl 
a  motive  and  interest  in  reaching  the  goal  for  which  she  is  striving. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  thorough  placement  work  as  organ- 
ized at  the  Manhattan  Trade  School  involves  a  follow-up  system 
which  keeps  track  of  the  girls  placed,  with  a  view  to  assisting 
them  to  make  further  progress  in  industrial  life.  This  is  apparent 
from  the  following  paragraph  : 

After  a  girl  is  thus  started  the  real  work  of  the  placement  department 
begins,  which  is  the  "  follow-up  "  of  all  students,  to  see  that  they  have  the  right 
opportunity  to  progress.  As  most  occupations  for  girls  are  seasonal  and  girls 
are  frequently  "  laid  off,"  the  first  placement  is  not  usually  sufficient.  Without 
some  guidance  young  girls  are  too  apt  to  look  at  the  immediate  wage  return 


338  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

rather  than  the  chance  for  future  advancement,  and  it  is  therefore  of  great 
importance  the  school  keep  in  close  'touch  with  its  girls,  ready  to  give  help  and 
advice  until  they  are  well  started  and  have  sufficient  maturity  and  experience 
to  take  entire  care  of  themselves. 

To  establish  throughout  the  city  placement  work  with  a  follow-up 
system  would  be  exceedingly  expensive,  and  it  is  unproved  thus 
far  that  the  results  attained  warrant  the  consideration  of  such  ex- 
penditures. From  a  practical  point  of  view  it  is  exceedingly  doubt- 
ful whether  placement  workers  in  all  the  high  schools  would  be 
able  to  continue  a  follow-up  system,  considering  the  large  number 
of  graduates  going  into  industry  each  year.  If,  indeed,  placement 
of  nongraduates  were  to  be  considered,  it  would  be  absolutely  im- 
possible for  20  placement  workers  at  $1100  to  $1400  per  annum 
to  do  the  placement  work  and  the  follow-up  work  with  any  degree 
of  thoroughness  or  success.  They  would  be  swamped  by  numbers 
within  three  years. 

It  is  true  that  placement  is  valuable  as  a  means  of  securing  indus- 
trial information  which  is  necessary  as  a  basis  for  determining  the 
kind  and  character  of  industrial  education.  While  it  is  doubtful 
if  placement  work  should  be  carried  on  directly  by  the  schools, 
undoubtedly  great  benefits  would  result  if  the  schools  were  to  have 
some  voice  in  placement  work.  At  the  present  time  placement 
work  is  generally  regarded  as  an  acute  or  emergency  problem.  It 
is  designed  to  find  a  job.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  should  be  consid- 
ered as  a  part  of  vocational  direction,  leading  to  further  industrial 
training  that  will  enable  boys  and  girls  to  escape  becoming  misfits 
in  industrial  life.  It  is  probable  that  greater  educational  returns 
could  be  secured  through  enabling  children  to  find  themselves  in 
industrial  life.  In  the  language  of  Miss  McAuliffe, 

There  really  is  nothing  in  the  world  which  brings  the  growing  boy  down  to 
his  own  level  like  a  search  for  a  position.  And  there  is  nothing,  I  believe,  that 
goes  so  far  toward  making  a  man  of  him.  The  boy  who  secures  his  position 
without  looking  for  it  loses  a  great  and  valuable  experience. 

It  does  not  seem,  therefore,  that  placement  as  at  present  con- 
ducted possesses  any  particular  educational  basis,  but  represents 
an  endeavor  on  the  part  of  placement  workers  to  enter  into  the 
economic  sphere  for  which  they  have  had  insufficient  training. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  339 

III 

If  the  schools  are  to  place  children  in  industry,  it  immediately 
becomes  apparent  that  the  school  assumes  in  a  measure  responsi- 
bility for  the  job  provided.  With  our  lack  of  information  regard- 
ing industrial  life,  it  is  hardly  fitting  that  teachers  should  assume 
responsibility  of  this  character.  The  employer  secures  the  advan- 
tage of  all  the  information  which  teachers  possess  about  the  children, 
but  the  children  do  not  receive  a  similar  advantage  regarding  the 
nature  of  the  positions  into  which  they  are  placed.  The  school 
has  no  authority  nor,  indeed,  information  warranting  an  assumption 
of  authority  to  guarantee  positions  for  children,  nor  does  it  seem 
right  that  the  school  system  should  place  children  without  a  full 
explanation  of  the  physical  and  moral  hazards  which  may  be  in- 
herent in  the  position  provided. 

The  school  owes  its  first  responsibility  to  children  in  so  far  as 
it  is  an  educational  institution.  The  responsibility  to  employers  is 
satisfied  when  the  schools  provide  adequate  education  to  prepare 
children  for  industrial,  commercial,  or  professional  life.  The  real 
responsibility  is  to  prevent  exploitation  and  to  provide  functional 
training. 

Mr.  Bloomfield  suggests  that 

It  is  not  the  business  of  a  public  school,  nor  of  any  other  agency  which  pur- 
ports to  be  social  in  its  aim,  to  lean  in  the  direction  of  employment.  Whatever 
the  bias,  it  should  be  in  favor  of  the  child.  The  employer  belongs  in  the  scheme 
of  vocational  guidance  only  so  far  as  his  employment  is  or  may  be  made 
advantageous  to  the  young  worker  and  to  the  community.  Only  so  far  as  he 
socializes  the  conditions  of  his  occupation  is  he  entitled  to  the  cooperation  of 
social  and  educational  agencies. 

The  school  responsibility  should  be  considered  rather ;  the  neces- 
sity of  keeping  children  in  school  rather  than  aiming  to  get  them 
into  industrial  life.  Miss  Kate  M.  Turner  stated  this  most  clearly 
in  the  following  words  : 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  are  on  rather  dangerous  ground.  The  last  speaker 
spoke  of  finding  jobs  for  boys  and  girls.  Now,  that  is  just  what  we  are  going 
to  do,  and  that  is  what  we  must  not  do.  It  is  not  going  to  give  us  any  satis- 
faction to  get  jobs  for  boys  and  girls ;  the  thing  that  we  must  keep  in  our  mind 
is  what  this  boy  and  girl  has  come  into  this  world  to  do. 


340  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  responsibility  that  is  felt  toward  the  employer  at  the  present 
time  is  emphasized  by  the  statement  of  Mr.  Tildsley : 

It  seems  to  me  that,  while  it  is  somebody's  function  to  revolutionize  the 
industrial  system,  I  hardly  think  it  is  the  function  of  the  Board  of  Education ; 
it  does  not  lay  within  its  power.  Now,  the  placement  work  advocated  by  some 
one  on  the  part  of  the  schools  is  that  we  should  have  certain  persons  in  our 
schools  who  should  have  time  to  get  in  touch  with  as  many  employers  of  in- 
dustry as  possible  and  assure  those  employers  that  we  can  furnish  them  with 
boys  and  girls  who  have  certain  characteristics  that  we  know  about  and  that 
we  can  send  them  those  boys  and  girls  with  a  certain  warrant. 

A  very  vital  question  of  school  function  arises  when  one  con- 
siders how  frequently  the  same  child  should  be  afforded  the  assist- 
ance of  a  placement  worker.  If  the  school  may  place  a  child  once, 
as  a  matter  of  principle  may  he  place  the  child  a  second  time  if  he 
fails  to  secure  success  in  his  first  position  ?  If  he  fails  in  a  second 
position,  shall  the  school  place  him  a  third  time  ?  If  it  may  place 
him  a  third  time,  when  shall  it  refuse  to  place  him  ?  In  answer  to 
the  question  of  the  chairman,  "  I  should  like  to  have  an  answer 
to  the  question  as  to  how  many  jobs  the  high  schools  should  find 
for  children  and  for  how  many  years  should  such  services  be 
continued,"  Miss  Strachan  gave  the  following  answer : 

I  should  say  that  the  high  school  should  get  jobs  or  positions  for  pupils  just 
as  often  as  the  high  school  can  in  response  to  requests  from  those  pupils,  unless 
the  pupil  so  placed  made  a  record  that  the  high  school  could  not  tolerate,  was 
dishonest  or  unfaithful  or  lazy  or  something  of  that  sort,  but  if  the  boy  or  girl 
had  left  through  simply  not  getting  along,  not  being  satisfied  with  the  place  or 
the  employer,  then  I  think  the  school  should  help  the  child  again. 

For  how  long  a  period  of  time  should  such  service  be  rendered  ? 

I  do  not  like  limits  of  any  kind. 

Mr.  Denbigh  expresses  himself  as  follows  : 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  are  surely  better  fitted  to  guide  these  children  into 
work  that  is  better  fitted  for  them  than  the  work  they  would  find  at  random 
for  themselves.  As  for  the  number  of  times  we  should  place  a  boy,  we  should 
place  him  just  as  often  as  we  can  better  his  condition,  if  he  came  back  to  us, 
until  he  is  twenty-one.  I  was  fortunate  to  find  a  place  for  one  of  our  boys  of 
twenty-eight,  but  I  do  not  think  the  school's  business  is  to  undertake  to  do 
that,  but  until  the  boy  or  girl  should  reach  the  age  of  twenty-one  we  should 
place  them  just  as  often  as  we  can. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  341 

If  at  Mr.  Denbigh's  suggestion  it  were  possible  to  place  a  child 
until  he  reached  the  age  of  twenty-one,  manifest  discrimination 
would  exist  in  favor  of  the  younger  graduates  of  high  schools  as 
opposed  to  the  older  graduates  in  so  far  as  the  years  of  service  of 
the  placement  worker  are  concerned.  An  extreme  view  is  given 
by  the  representative  of  the  Commercial  High  School,  who  would 
place  children  "  until  seventy  times  seven." 

If  frequency  of  placement  is  to  be  the  practice,  virtually  the 
school  is  to  maintain  an  employment  agency.  This  cannot  be 
regarded  by  itself  as  a  function  of  an  educational  system.  Public 
moneys  are  not  to  be  diverted  from  strictly  educational  projects 
for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  an  employment  agency ;  nor  is  it 
reasonable  for  public  moneys  to  be  diverted  for  a  selected  group 
of  high-school  graduates,  or  even  high-school  nongraduates,  if 
placement  is  distinctly  a  function  of  an  educational  system.  It  is 
probably  true  that  there  should  be  some  cooperation  between  the 
educational  system  and  other  agencies  whose  actual  aim  it  is  to 
secure  employment  for  individuals  desiring  it.  This  complicated 
matter  deserves  thorough  study  and  should  be  considered  by  a 
committee  of  the  Board  of  Education,  together  with  representa- 
tives from  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  the  Labor  Union,  repre- 
sentatives of  the  teachers  of  elementary  and  high  schools,  and 
other  existing  organizations  interested  in  juvenile  employment 
and  vocational  guidance. 

IV 

At  the  present  time  there  is  insufficient  information  on  the 
part  of  teachers  in  our  public  schools  to  warrant  the  expenditure 
of  public  money  for  the  purpose  of  extending  placement  work  in 
our  high  schools.  The  placement  workers,  diligent  as  they  may 
be  and  conscientious  as  are  their  efforts,  do  not  possess  sufficient 
knowledge  of  occupations  or  industries  to  warrant  them  in  assum- 
ing the  responsibility  of  the  work  they  have  undertaken.  Mr.  Gill 
has  urged  as  follows : 

The  parents  to-day  do  not  know  as  much  about  industry  as  the  placement 
teacher  can  know  and  ought  to  know,  and  so  I  think  the  work  ought  to  be  done 
in  the  school  because  it  is  more  efficiently  carried  on  by  the  school  than  if 
carried  on  in  the  home,  and  so  long  as  that  condition  remains  as  it  is  to-day, 
the  school  is  not  doing  its  duty  to  society  unless  it  does  that  work. 


342  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

While  it  is  true  that  parents  have  insufficient  knowledge  regard- 
ing all  industries  to  be  effective  in  either  vocational  guidance  or 
placement,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  schools  would  represent  a 
great  improvement  over  the  present  plan  if  placement  were  to  be- 
come a  school  function.  In  the  language  of  Professor  Bonser, 

Placement,  as  I  see  it,  is  not  a  term  for  vocational  guidance  at  all.  It  is 
simply  taking  persons  who  want  jobs  and  getting  jobs  for  them.  What  infor- 
mation do  these  placement  people  have  by  which  to  determine  what  a  boy  or 
girl  is  best  fitted  for  ?  It  is  taking  the  best  jobs  that  can  be  got. 

This  view  is  partially  supported  by  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Prosser : 

No  vocational  counselor,  however  competent  and  however  devoted,  will  be 
able  to  deal  with  most  children  at  fourteen  years  of  age  unless  he  knows  more 
about  their  tasks  and  ability  than  the  fact  that  they  have  made  this  or  that 
per  cent  in  spelling,  reading,  arithmetic,  geography,  history,  and  other  public- 
school  subjects.  Such  a  record  may  determine  whether  or  not  the  child  is 
destined  for  high  school  and  for  college ;  it  does  not  at  all  reveal  the  other 
tendencies  and  capabilities  of  most  pupils. 

The  by-law  of  the  Board  of  Education,  Section  Si  a,  states  as 
follows : 

To  be  eligible  for  license  as  placement  and  investigation  assistant  in  high 
schools,  the  applicant  must  have  the  following  qualification :  three  years'  satis- 
factory experience  in  placement  and  industrial  work,  together  with  a  general 
education  satisfactory  to  the  Board  of  Examiners. 

It  is  obvious  from  the  wording  of  this  by-law  that  very  little 
effort  has  been  made  to  establish  qualifications  for  placement  and 
investigation  assistants  that  would  insure  their  reliability  or  effi- 
ciency. On  the  basis  of  this  by-law,  it  would  be  possible  to  burden 
our  high  schools  with  persons  totally  'unqualified  to  attempt  the 
serious  performance  of  placement  work. 

From  the  figures  presented  by  Mr.  Denbigh  and  Mr.  Larkins, 
it  is  evident  that  placement  work  as  at  present  conducted  is  not 
really  essential  in  all  high  schools.  There  are  many  who  feel  that 
placement  work  in  public  schools  should  be  carried  on  only  in 
connection  with  graduates  of  high  schools  in  technical  and  trade 
courses.  Possibly,  for  the  purposes  of  study  and  investigation,  it 
might  be  desirable  to  test  out  the  efficiency  of  one  or  two  place- 
ment workers.  At  the  present  time  there  is  one  at  the  Manhattan 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  343 

Trade  School  and  one  at  the  Washington  Irving  High  School.  It 
is  undesirable  for  the  Board  of  Education  to  appoint  any  further 
placement  and  investigation  assistants  until  a  thorough  analysis  has 
been  made  of  the  value  and  efficiency  of  the  work  undertaken  by 
these  two  individuals.  It  would  be  a  short-sighted  policy  to  burden 
the  educational  system  with  a  number  of  placement  workers  until 
complete  data  are  in  evidence  attesting  their  value  to  the  community 
and  particularly  to  the  children  for  whom  their  service  is  intended. 

At  the  present  time  it  is  impossible  to  place  elementary-school 
graduates,  and  yet  one  cannot  but  agree  with  Frishberg  :  "  I  think 
we  agree  that  the  boy  or  girl  who  can  reach  high  school  is  far  more 
able  to  help  himself  or  herself  than  the  boy  or  girl  who  leaves 
school  before  sixteen." 

If  placement  is  to  be  construed  as  a  principle  of  education,  in 
terms  of  social  advantage,  it  is  evident  that  it  should  be  made 
available  to  the  largest  possible  group  of  children.  This  would 
require  that  the  subject  of  placement  in  the  elementary  schools  be 
carefully  considered.  It  seems  quite  possible  that  placement  in  the 
elementary  schools  might  serve  to  decrease  the  attendance  at  high 
schools.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  more  probable  that  investigations 
of  industry  as  related  to  placement  would  show  the  necessity  for 
greater  differentiation  in  the  courses  of  the  seventh  and  eighth 
grades  of  the  elementary  schools,  together  with  an  extension  of 
vocational  schools  or  the  introduction  of  continuation  schools. 
Education  for  placement  deserves  no  greater  consideration  than 
education  for  leisure  or  avocation.  The  function  of  education  is 
to  prepare  for  life,  and,  while  vocation  is  an  essential  part  of 
life,  it  is  not  all  of  life. 

Vocational  analysis 

If  it  be  granted  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  placement  should 
be  installed  as  a  feature  of  the  school  system,  the  question  of  voca- 
tional analysis  is  of  the  utmost  importance.  From  what  has  been 
said  before,  it  is  apparent  that  there  is  insufficient  information  as 
to  what  is  demanded  by  industry  of  its,  workers.  There  are  no  rules 
or  regulations  or  definite  procedures  for  determining  the  aptitudes 
of  children  so  as  to  give  them  effective  guidance. 


344  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Vocational  training 

If  placement  is  an  end  and  aim  in  itself,  it  would  become  nec- 
essary to  reconstruct  our  educational  plans  so  as  to  have  the  courses 
of  training  lead  up  to  placement.  At  the  present  time  vocational 
training  has  no  fixed  position.  We  are  not  wholly  certain  of  the 
value  of  our  vocational  schools.  They  are  probably  doing  excellent 
work,  in  so  far  as  is  possible  with  the  comparative  lack  of  informa- 
tion upon  which  they  were  created.  It  would  be  unwise  to  extend 
vocational  training  until  some  definite  information  is  available  to 
indicate  the  lines  along  which  vocational  education  should  be  given. 

Vocational-education  survey 

Lack  of  information  regarding  vocational  guidance  appears  to 
be  the  most  definite  fact  one  can  reveal.  In  the  report  on  Com- 
mercial Education  of  the  School  Inquiry  are  found  the  following 
recommendations  : 

A  temporary  special  commission  to  consist  of  commercial  teachers  tem- 
porarily relieved  of  their  ordinary  duties,  to  investigate  with  the  help  of  busi- 
ness conditions  in  relation  to  commercial  education  ;  and  to  lay  the  foundation 
for  cooperative  relations  between  commercial  courses  and  schools  and  com- 
mercial houses. 

What  is  needed  is  a  clear  definition  of  the  aims,  scope,  and  methods  of 
training  actually  required  for  business  careers  as  seen  by  business  men  who 
have  seriously  brought  their  minds  to  bear  on  this  problem,  and  the  gradual 
development  of  instruction  that  will  provide  this  training  by  the  schools.  .  .  . 
Commerce,  like  industry,  must  recognize  its  responsibility  to  the  thousands  of 
young  lives  devoted  to  its  service. 

In  the  report  on  vocational  schools  it  is  recommended  "  that 
the  occupations  into  which  children  go  as  soon  as  the  law  permits 
them  to  go  to  work  be  studied  in  order  that  the  proper  continuation- 
school  and  cooperative-school  instruction  be  wisely  planned ;  that 
a  comprehensive  survey  be  made  showing  the  number  of  boys  and 
girls  in  different  occupations,  and  the  nature  of  these  occupations  ; 
and  that  continuation  schools,  .  .  .  and  to  a  limited  extent,  at  least, 
cooperative  schools  too,  in  the  energizing  occupations  be  established 
as  soon  as  possible." 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  345 

The  Vocational  Guidance  Survey  has  stated  that  "it  is  useless 
to  attempt  to  guide  children  into  vocations  before  we  have  more 
information.  No  existing  organization  has  adequate  information 
at  present  about  the  demand  for  workers  or  the  opportunities  for 
and  conditions  of  work  and  training  in  the  twenty  largest  industries, 
not  to  mention  the  numerous  minor  ones." 

Mr.  Chatfield  in  the  last  report  of  the  Permanent  Census  Board 
stresses  the  same  thought : 

It  is  becoming  more  and  more  clearly  recognized,  however,  that  movements 
for  vocational  training  and  vocational  guidance  are  dependent  upon  the  classi- 
fication and  collection  of  information  concerning  industry  itself.  The  teaching 
of  children  cannot  be  adapted  to  manufacturing,  industry,  and  commerce  until, 
in  a  variety  of  specialized  trades  and  industries,  processes  and  variations  of 
processes  are  known,  the  part  performed  by  persons  and  the  part  played  by 
machinery  is  analyzed,  and  until  the  growth  and  decline  of  various  lines  of 
business  have  been  made  a  matter  of  systematic  record  and  rendered  available 
for  the  use  of  school  administrators. 


THE'  OCCUPATIONS  OF  COLLEGE  GRADUATES  AS 
INFLUENCED  BY  THE  UNDERGRADUATE  COURSE 

BY  DEAN  FREDERICK  P.  KEPPEL,  COLUMBIA  COLLEGE,  NEW  YORK 
(From  the  Educational  Review,  December,  1910) 

The  college  course  is  to-day  receiving  at  least  its  share  of  dis- 
cussion on  the  part  both  of  professionals  and  amateurs.  In  these 
discussions  references  to  the  relations  of  the  college  to  the  life 
work  of  the  men  who  graduate  from  it  are  constant,  but  specific 
information  as  to  the  nature  of  that  relation  is  not  so  easily  found. 
In  fact,  it  is  pretty  hard  to  come  upon  at  all.  It  occurred  to  me, 
therefore,  that  some  definite  data  as  to  how  the  college  men  of  the 
present  time  themselves  regard  this  relation  might  be  of  service. 
Accordingly  I  sent  a  letter  of  inquiry  to  the  members  of  the  classes 
of  1908-1910  of  a  typical  independent  college,  Dartmouth,  and 
a  typical  university  college,  Columbia.  What  I  wanted  to  find  out 
was,  of  course,  just  what  influence  the  college  course  had  exerted 
on  each  man's  choice  of  a  life-career.  I  knew,  however,  from 
experience  that  a  direct  inquiry  upon  this  point  would  be  likely 
to  force  the  answer,  and  I  therefore  endeavored  to  get  the  infor- 
mation, so  to  speak,  between  the  lines  from  the  answers  to  the 
following  inquiries  : 

Have  you  come  to  a  fairly  definite  decision  as  to  what  your 
life  work  is  to  be  ? 

Nature  of  work. 

Was  the  decision  reached  before  entering  college  ? 

If  after  entering,  was  it  in  the  freshman,  sophomore  year,  junior 
or  senior  year,  or  after  graduation  ? 

If  you  can  conveniently  do  so,  state  in  a  few  words  the  reason 
for  your  decision. 

If  you  have  changed  one  fairly  definite  plan  for  another,  kindly 
indicate  the  time  of  change  and  the  reason  for  it. 

346 


THE  OCCUPATIONS  OF  COLLEGE  GRADUATES      347 

In  all,  800  inquiries  may  be  assumed  to  have  reached  their 
destination,  and  up  to  the  present  519  replies  have  been  received. 
I  have  not  endeavored  to  round  up  the  men  who  have  not  replied ; 
for  even  the  clinical  material  of  educational  inquiry  possesses  as 
individuals  some  rights  of  privacy,  and,  considering  my  own  record 
in  such  matters,  it  is  not  for  me  to  complain  if  the  "  inclosed 
postage  stamp  "  has  been  used  for  another  and,  to  the  recipient, 
more  useful  purpose. 

The  addresses  of  the  men  who  failed  to  reply  have  been  checked 
up  roughly.  The  number  who  are  apparently  in  university  profes- 
sional schools  or  in  teaching  positions  make  it  clear  that  we  may 
safely  draw  our  conclusions  as  to  the  general  conditions  from  the 
replies  that  have  been  received,  provided  we  remember  that  the 
proportion  of  men  still  in  doubt  as  to  their  future  work  is  naturally 
greater  in  the  case  of  men  who  did  not  reply  than  in  that  of 
those  who  did. 

The  first  thing  which  the  replies  show  is  that  the  young  college 
man  of  say  twenty-three  is  pretty  sure  to  possess  a  definite  idea 
as  to  what  he  is  going  to  do  with  his  life.  Only  26  men  replied 
that  they  had  come  to  no  definite  decision  as  yet.  Of  the  493 
who  had  made  up  their  minds,  216  had  done  so  before  going  to 
college,  and  had  not  changed  since.  Forty-three  did  not  make  up 
their  minds  until  after  graduation.  For  those  who  decided  while 
in  college,  the  junior  year  seems  to  be  the  critical  period,  87  men 
reporting  that  the  decision  was  reached  in  that  year,  as  against 
20  in  the  freshman,  38  in  the  sophomore,  and  63  in  the  senior 
year.  One  reason  for  this  may  well  be  that,  considering  the  pres- 
ent age  for  college  entrance,  a  student's  twenty-first  birthday 
is  likely  to  fall  in  his  junior  year.  Thirty-two  men  did  not  specif- 
ically indicate  in  their  replies  the  time  when  their  decision  was 
reached. 

The  actual  choices  of  career  affect  our  inquiry  only  secondarily, 
but  they  are  interesting  as  showing  the  professional  trend  in  a 
college  such  as  Columbia,  where  a  college  student  may  elect  pro- 
fessional work  for  the  Bachelor's  degree.  Indeed,  a  similar  influence 
is  seen  from  the  opportunities  open  to  the  Dartmouth  undergraduate 
in  the  Thayer,  the  Tuck,  and  the  Medical  schools. 


348  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Agriculture  and  forestry 15 

Architecture 4 

Business 107 

Engineering 45 

Financial 36 

Letters  (including  journalism,  etc.) 17 

Law 96 

Manufacturing 28 

Medicine 32 

Ministry 20 

Public  service 20 

Teaching  and  research 66 

Unclassified 7 

493 

We  have  now  some  general  idea  as  to  what  about  500  young 
college  men  are  actually  planning  to  do  with  their  lives.  Let  us 
see  their  reasons  for  these  plans,  and  in  particular  just  what  their 
college  experience  has  had  to  do  with  the  matter.  Not  all  of  them 
who  replied  gave  any  reason  at  all,  and,  as  is  natural,  a  number 
of  those  who  did,  gave  more  than  one  reason.  In  checking  up 
the  answers,  therefore,  I  have  apportioned  these  pro  rata,  so  that 
the  answers  represent  not  only  whole  "votes,"  but  one-half  and 
one-third  votes. 

More  than  half  the  reasons  are  not  very  illuminating  —  which 
is,  in  part  at  least,  the  penalty  one  pays  for  deliberate  failure  to 
"  beg  the  answer  "  in  the  form  of  question.  Of  these  vague  replies 
84  were  to  the  effect  that  the  work  was  likely  to  be  congenial ; 
57,  that  the  calling  chosen  was  one  for  which  the  man  seemed  best 
fitted;  in  23  cases  it  was  apparently  the  path  of  least  resistance. 
The  more  definite  factors,  when  given,  are  interesting.  The  3  5  votes 
for  an  opportunity  for  service  and  the  24  for  a  career  with  wide 
opportunities  are  promising  signs,  for  which  the  college  may  fairly 
take  some  credit.  We  shall  see  in  a  moment  that  the  college  had 
better  take  all  the  credit  it  can.  The  16  decisions  for  an  outdoor 
life,  most  of  them  from  men  who  are  preparing  for  forestry,  is  an 
interesting  sign  of  the  times.  Only  23  men  confessed  to  choosing 
their  work  chiefly  for  the  financial  reward  immediate  or  prospective, 
and  several  of  these  had  others  depending  upon  them.  Nineteen 
men  chose  some  particular  calling  as  a  permanent  occupation, 


THE  OCCUPATIONS  OF  COLLEGE  GRADUATES    349 

because  they  liked  the  sample  of  it  they  got  in  summer  employ- 
ment ;  27  were  decided  by  the  opening  up  of  some  specific 
opportunity ;  and  5  2  by  the  example  of  parents  or  other  relatives. 

In  the  great  majority  of  cases  the  college  was  not  mentioned 
at  all  as  a  factor  in  the  student's  choice.  Indeed,  several  men, 
guessing  the  main  object  of  the  inquiry,  made  it  a  point  to  write 
that  their  college  career  had  had  nothing  to  do  with  their  plans 
for  the  future.  Of  the  men  who  had  made  no  change  in  their  pro- 
gram, 29  referred  specifically  to  the  college  courses  as  influencing 
their  decision  —  and  one  only  of  these  confessed  to  having  asked 
and  taken  the  advice  of  his  professors. 

Eighty-seven  men  changed  their  plans  during  the  college  course. 
The  comparatively  small  number  of  these  changes  (only  16  per 
cent  of  the  total  number  replying)  is,  I  think,  significant,  as. is 
also  the  large  proportion  of  changes  which  apparently  came  from 
causes  lying  outside  of  the  program.  In  40  of  the  70  cases  where 
specific  reason  for  the  change  is  given,  no  mention  is  made  of 
the  student's  college  career.  Some  men  were  turned  by  a  spe- 
cific business  opportunity ;  an  early  marriage  caused  one  man  to 
give  up  the  study  of  medicine  and  take  a  teaching  position  ;  others 
changed  for  reasons  of  health,  family  affairs,  and  the  like.  Five 
changes  were  due  to  indirect  college  influence  ;  for  example,  a  call 
to  the  ministry  resulting  from  a  student's  visit  to  Northfield,  a 
change  from  medicine  to  law  due  to  success  in  college  debating. 
Sixteen  men  changed  their  plan  because  they  disliked  the  sample 
they  received  in  college  of  the  work  required  in  the  calling  of  their 
first  choice ;  a  biological  course,  for  example,  turned  more  than 
one  prospective  doctor  into  a  lawyer,  and,  particularly  at  Columbia, 
the  chance  to  offer  professional  work  toward  the  college  degree 
gave  several  undergraduates  all  they  desired  of  law,  medicine,  or 
architecture.  (It  must  not  be  forgotten,  by  the  way,  that  the  men 
with  whom  we  are  dealing  are  not  the  lame  ducks  of  college  life ; 
they  had  at  least  entered  the  senior  class  with  good  standing,  or 
they  would  not  have  received  an  inquiry.)  Only  25  men  changed 
their  plans  because  of  the  irresistible  attraction  of  some  college 
subject.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting  reply  received  was  from 
a  man  who  had  intended  to  be  an  engineer  but  who  became  greatly 


350  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

interested  in  an  elementary-law  course.  He  cast  about  for  some 
occupation  which  would  enable  him  to  serve  both  masters,  and 
he  has  found  what  he  wanted  in  patent  law. 

No  conception  can  be  given  in  a  brief  article  of  the  interest  of 
the  individual  replies  as  documents  humaines.  One  man  used  the 
blank  to  preach  a  Christian  Science  sermon.  Another  explained 
how  acquaintance  with  Jack  London  had  turned  him  to  the  task 
of  improving  the  social  order.  Another,  who  had  planned  to  be 
an  artist,  found  his  aesthetic  taste  atrophied  after  four  years  of 
undergraduate  life.  One  man  gave  up  his  plans  to  be  a  teacher 
because  the  college  instructor  impressed  him  as  singularly  remote 
from  the  real  things  of  life.  Another,  whose  triple  ambition  was  to 
lead  a  life  that  was  at  once  spiritual,  active,  and  practically  useful, 
has,  after  considering  the  law  and  ministry,  decided  upon  Y.M.C.A. 
work.  A  manufacturer,  in  moments  of  depression,  thought  of  be- 
coming a  professional  musician.  We  have,  on  the  one  hand,  him 
who  decided  upon  the  law  as  a  career  at  the  age  of  five  and,  on 
the  other,  the  man  who  gave  up  its  study  because  of  the  difficulty 
attending  the  practice  of  law  by  an  honest  man.  One  man  con- 
sidered for  a  long  time  the  rival  attractions  of  chair  making  and 
teaching,  and  finally  decided  upon  the  latter.  On  the  whole,  the 
most  interesting  replies  are  those  from  men  who,  like  the  patent 
lawyer  of  whom  I  spoke,  have  thought  out  their  own  line  and  then 
followed  it,  even  if  it  led  off  the  beaten  path,  and  of  these  there 
are  a  considerable  number. 

I  have  cited  these  random  examples  largely  in  the  hope  that 
men  in  other  colleges  may  be  led  to  make  inquiries  along  the  same 
lines.  Unless  I  am  greatly  mistaken,  the  actual  relationship  of  the 
college  to  the  student  in  this  matter  of  life  work,  as  it  is  indicated 
from  the  replies  received  by  me,  differs  considerably  from  the  off- 
hand opinion  on  the  subject  now  held  by  most  men  engaged  in 
college  teaching.  It  seems  to  me  further  that  the  question  has 
sufficient  practical  importance  in  these  days,  when  we  are  beginning 
to  realize  that  an  American  college  is  not  a  German  university,  to 
justify  a  study  of  five  thousand  cases  instead  of  five  hundred. 

If  my  information  is  typical,  a  very  large  proportion  of  boys 
before  entering  college  have  'decided  upon  a  very  definite  scheme 


THE  OCCUPATIONS  OF  COLLEGE  GRADUATES    351 

of  life  from  which  they  are  not  likely  to  change.  The  question 
arises,  therefore,  whether  the  colleges  are  using  intelligently  the 
lever  which  this  places  in  their  hands.  A  competent  instructor  or 
dean,  having  ascertained  the  boy's  ambition,  ought  to  be  able  to 
focus  his  interest,  according  to  the  type  of  boy  with  whom  he  is 
dealing,  either  in  the  subjects  which  form  a  broad  foundation  for 
his  work  or  in  those  which  lead  directly  toward  it. 

The  references  to  the  influence  of  what  are  generally  known  as 
undergraduate  activities  are  scattering,  but  there  are  enough  of  them 
to  furnish  one  more  argument  for  paying  attention  to  these  as  in- 
tegral parts  of  the  educational  equipment  of  the  college.  A  faculty 
ought  not  to  be  satisfied  when  it  has  devised  machinery  to  prevent 
abuses.  It  ought  not  to  limit  itself  to  keeping  some  boys  out  of 
these  activities,  for  there  are  at  least  as  many  boys  who  ought  to 
be  led  into  them. 

Finally,  knowledge  that  a  student  has  not  yet  made  up  his  mind 
as  to  what  he  will  do,  or  that  he  is  thinking  of  changing  a  pro- 
gram previously  formed,  is  of  no  small  importance.  Here  is  an 
actual  hinge  in  the  armor  of  "remoteness"  for  the  college  to  attack 
in  making  its  endeavor  to  establish  a  real  personal  influence  with 
the  student.  It  is  startling  to  read  between  the  lines  in  so  many 
cases  that  a  student  had  no  expectation  whatever  that  the  faculty 
could  or  would  be  of  any  help  to  him.  I  do  not  mean  that  an 
undergraduate  should  be  pestered  with  suggestions  and  advice,  but 
the  college  certainly  can  fairly  be  expected  to  have  a  little  more 
to  do  with  his  decision  upon  so  vital  a  matter  than  appears  to  be 
the  case  at  present.  I  am  confident  that  many  a  student,  particu- 
larly in  the  great  middle  class  of  men,  conspicuous  neither  for 
brilliancy  nor  for  delinquency  and  therefore  too  often  left  wholly 
to  their  own  devices,  would  welcome  a  sympathetic  and  intelligent 
interest  on  the  part  of  the  college  in  his  future  career. 


PRACTICAL  ARTS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

BY  C.  A.  PROSSER,  SECRETARY  NATIONAL  SOCIETY  FOR  THE 
PROMOTION  OF  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

(From  the  Manual  Training  Magazine,  February,  1913) 

In  spite  of  all  the  other  excellent  things  which  our  public- 
school  system  does  for  childhood,  most  boys  and  girls  leave  the 
portals  of  the  schoolhouse  to  enter  all  kinds  of  wage-earning 
occupations  not  only  untrained  but  undirected  as  to  what  they 
ought  to  do  in  life. 

More  than  6,000,000  boys  and  girls  between  fourteen  and 
eighteen  years  of  age  are  employed  in  various  ways  in  this  country. 
This  does  not  include  the  additional  army  of  children  in  some  of 
the  Southern  states  leaving  school  at  the  tender  age  of  twelve. 
During  the  present  year  at  least  2,000,000  more  childish  wage- 
earners,  upon  reaching  the  age  of  fourteen,  will  enter  the  ranks  of 
industry.  More  than  seven  out  of  ten  of  this  multitude  did  not 
finish  the  work  of  the  elementary  school.  More  than  three  out  of 
four  of  them  did  not  reach  the  eighth  year  of  the  schools,  and  more 
than  one  out  of  two,  the  seventh  year.  Almost  half  of  them  had 
not  completed  the  fifth-grade  work.  Great  numbers  of  them  were 
barely  able  to  meet  the  test  for  illiteracy  necessary  in  order  to 
secure  working  certificates,  which  in  most  of  the  states  is  a  test 
on  the  work  of  the  fourth  grade. 

These  children  not  only  entered  life  deficient  in  the  elementary- 
school  education  which  our  day  regards  as  being  necessary  to  the 
civic  intelligence  and  the  vocational  efficiency  of  everyone,  but 
practically  all  of  them  had  been  trained  by  a  formalized  process 
in  the  things  of  the  books  alone,  which  gave  them  no  opportunity 
to  find  what  they  would  like  to  do  and  what  they  were  best  able 
to  do  in  life.  Practically  all  of  them  went  to  work  without  proper 
vocational  guidance  and  direction.  All  of  them  found  the  doors 

35- 


PRACTICAL  ARTS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE      353 

of  most  of  the  skilled  and  desirable  industries  closed  to  them  until 
they  should  become  sixteen  years  of  age. 

Since  they  must  work  somewhere,  most  of  these  childish  wage 
earners  find  their  way  largely  by  accident  into  low-grade  skilled  or 
unskilled  occupations  —  the  great  child-employing  industries  and 
enterprises  which  are  always  wide  open  at  the  bottom  to  receive 
young  workers  but  closed  at  the  top  so  far  as  permanent  desirable 
employment  is  concerned.  Here,  because  their  work  lacks  purpose 
and  hope,  they  drift  about  from  one  position  to  another,  changing 
in  some  states,  it  is  said,  from  one  unskilled  position  to  another  on 
an  average  once  every  four  months.  The  resulting  moral  degrada- 
tion to  the  child  and  the  tremendous  cost  to  the  employer,  due  to 
this  indifferent,  unstable,  fluctuating  service,  cannot  be  estimated. 
For  most  of  these  children  the  years  from  fourteen  to  sixteen 
spent  in  wage  earning  in  store  and  shop  and  factory  are  wasted 
years,  since  they  find  themselves  at  sixteen  in  the  same  posi- 
tion as  at  fourteen  —  starting  life  without  any  adequate  prepa- 
ration for  wage  earning.  Their  menial,  monotonous,  more  or  less 
automatic  work  not  only  gives  no  skill  which  will  be  useful  to 
them  in  after  years  but  also  arrests  rather  than  develops  intelli- 
gence and  ambition. 

Out  of  the  great  army  of  children  who  leave  the  schools  at  four- 
teen to  go  to  work,  and  get  from  those  schools  no  further  attention, 
come  the  ne'er-do-wells,  the  loafers,  the  tramps,  gamblers,  prosti- 
tutes, and  criminals  for  whose  care  the  state  spends  more  money 
in  penal  and  correctional  work  than  it  would  have  cost  to  have 
prevented,  through  proper  vocational  guidance  and  training,  many 
of  them  from  becoming  a  burden  and  menace  to  society. 

In  the  absence  of  any  work  in  the  elementary  schools  which 
discovers  the  taste  and  ability  of  children,  many  pupils,  after  re- 
ceiving the  graded-school  diploma,  elect  the  high  school  when  it 
does  not  give  the  training  which  is  best  suited  to  their  needs 
and  to  the  kind  of  work  they  are  to  do  in  the  world.  They 
do  this  largely  because  they  have  not  found  themselves  and 
have  not  come  to  realize  either  the  kind  of  work  which  they  are 
destined  to  do  or  the  kind  of  training  which  would  best  prepare 
them  for  it. 


354  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

SOME  CHOICE  INEVITABLE 

All  boys  and  girls  are,  in  the  neighborhood  of  fourteen  years  of 
age,  required  to  make  a  choice  of  some  kind.  They  decide  first 
of  all  whether  they  are  to  attend  school  or  go  to  work.  If  they  are 
to  attend  school,  they  must  decide  what  kind  of  school  they  are  to 
enter.  As  vocational  schools,  or  departments,  are  established  to 
meet  the  needs  of  those  who  are  not  destined  for  business  and  pro- 
fessional careers,  every  pupil  ought,  as  the  results  of  his  previous 
training,  to  be  in  a  position  at  fourteen  years  of  age  to  make  an 
intelligent  choice  of  the  occupation  which  he  desires  to  follow  or 
the  kind  of  training  which  he  wishes.  This  can  only  be  done  by 
some  system  of  instruction,  in  the  upper  grades  of  the  elementary 
schools,  which  will  test  pupils  out  by  other  things  in  addition  to 
arithmetic,  spelling,  reading,  writing,  and  other  traditional  subjects 
of  a  general  education. 

The  results  of  our  failure  through  the  schools  to  properly  direct 
and  train  all  the  children  of  all  the  people  for  useful  service  are 
unmistakable.  Misfits  in  all  vocations  confront  us  everywhere. 
Many  workers  are  inefficient  because  they  are  not  adapted  to  the 
work  they  are  doing,  and  some  because  they  have  not  been  properly 
prepared  for  it.  This  lack  of  efficiency  constitutes  a  permanent 
handicap  not  only  to  the  worker  but  to  the  calling  which  he  follows. 
It  means  lessened  wage,  uncertain  employment,  failure  of  promo- 
tion, economic  struggle,  waste  in  the  use  of  material,  poor  workman- 
ship, reduced  output,  and  the  lowering  of  the  standards  of  skill 
and  workmanship  of  American  industries. 

We  talk  much  to-day  of  the  necessity  of  conserving  our  natural 
resources.  Let  us  not  forget  that  the  richest  asset  which  this 
country  possesses  is  the  practical  and  constructive  ability  of  the  chil- 
dren who  sit  in  our  schoolhouses  to-day,  who  are  to  be  the  workers 
and  the  leaders  in  industry  of  the  future,  and  whose  talent  and 
aptitude,  whatever  it  may  be,  can  only  be  uncovered  by  some  sys- 
tem of  training  within  the  schools  that  will  give  it  a  chance  for 
expression.  Every  consideration  requires  that  every  worker  should 
have  a  chance  to  discover  and  to  develop  to  the  full  all  his  possi- 
bilities, both  for  the  good  of  himself  and  for  the  welfare  of  the 


PRACTICAL  ARTS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE      355 

social  order.  It  is  idle  for  us  to  talk  much  about  conserving  our 
natural  resources,  until  we  have,  by  a  system  of  vocational  guidance 
and  training,  developed  a  type  of  intelligent  skilled  workmen  in 
shop  and  home  and  farm  who  will  so  deal  with  the  products  of 
our  soil  and  our  mines  as  to  eliminate  waste  and  transform  them 
into  products  of  higher  and  still  higher  value. 

Above  all,  we  must  in  some  way  secure  a  better  adjustment  of 
every  worker  to  the  calling  in  which  he  can  work  most  success- 
fully, in  order  that  he  may  have  the  joy  that  comes  from  a  sense 
of  achievement,  and  experience  the  uplift  that  blesses  every  man 
who  finds  himself  employed  at  a  task  in  which  he  is  interested 
and  at  which  he  is  able  to  render  a  service  creditable  to  himself 
and  beneficial  to  his  fellows. 

Vocational  guidance  and  vocational  education  are  necessary  in 
meeting  the  problem  of  fitting  the  great  mass  of  our  people  for 
useful  employment,  each  as  the  handmaiden  of  the  other  and  each 
as  indispensable  to  the  success  of  the  other.  This  paper  will  con- 
fine its  attention  largely  to  the  question  of  how  vocational  guid- 
ance may  be  best  given  boys  and  girls  at  fourteen  years  of  age. 

Two  things  are  necessary  in  any  successful  program  of  voca- 
tional guidance  :  a  greater  knowledge  of  the  child  than  we  have 
thus  far  obtained  through  the  work  of  the  schools,  and  the  close 
cooperation  of  other  agencies  with  the  schoolmaster  in  the  at- 
tempt to  give  advice  and  counsel  to  the  child  as  to  his  choice 
of  a  life  work. 

No  vocational  counselor,  however  competent  and  however  de- 
voted, will  be  able  to  deal  with  most  children  at  fourteen  years  of 
age  unless  he  knows  more  about  their  tasks  and  ability  than  the 
fact  that  they  have  made  this  or  that  per  cent  in  spelling,  reading, 
arithmetic,  geography,  history,  and  other  public-school  subjects. 
Such  a  record  may  determine  whether  or  not  the  child  is  destined 
for  high  school  and  for  college  ;  it  does  not  at  all  reveal  the  other 
tendencies  and  capabilities  of  most  pupils.  It  is  equally  true  that 
the  vocational  counselor  must  learn,  if  he  would  be  successful,  how 
to  secure  in  some  way  the  active,  helpful  cooperation  of  laymen, 
drawn  from  many  different  walks  and  occupations  of  life,  who  will 
be  able  to  give  him  and  those  children  with  whom  he  deals  the 


356  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

benefit  of  the  experience  which  they  have  had,  and  serve  as  big 
brothers  and  big  sisters  in  the  task  of  helping  the  adolescent  boy 
and  girl  to  find  themselves. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL  PERIOD 

The  greater  knowledge  of  the  child  which  we  need  to  have  in 
order  to  give  vocational  direction  is  only  to  be  obtained  by  some 
system  of  training  within  the  schools  between  twelve  and  fourteen 
years  of  age  which  shall  help  us  to  find  out  what  they  would  like 
to  do  and  what  they  are  best  able  to  do. 

Under  the  comparatively  simple  and  primitive  conditions  of 
farm  and  village  life  of  an  earlier  day  the  experiences  the  child 
went  through  in  his  environment  on  the  farm  and  in  the  village 
uncovered  his  interests  and  his  ability  largely  without  the  aid  of 
the  schoolroom.  The  little  red  schoolhouse  on  the  hill  still  tested 
him  in  the  things  of  the  book ;  his  environment  tested  him  in 
the  things  of  life. 

The  boy  came  in  contact  with  a  round  of  activities  which  were 
distinctively  educative  to  him  in  the  practical  affairs  of  life.  He 
followed  the  plow  while  his  father  sowed.  On  rainy  days  he  tink- 
ered with  the  farm  machinery  in  the  barn.  When  he  was  not  able 
to  repair  it,  he  took  it  to  the  village  hard  by  and  helped,  in  a  hum- 
ble way,  the  artisan  there  to  do  his  work.  In  the  village  he  came 
into  rather  intimate  contact  with  the  work  of  the  blacksmith,  the 
wheelwright,  the  saddler,  the  carpenter,  the  shoemaker,  and  all 
the  other  skilled  trades  which  the  community  afforded. 

Out  of  this  experience  with  the  realities  of  things,  certain 
undoubted  benefits  came  to  the  boy.  The  experiences  he  went 
through  were  distinctively  educational  to  him.  He  learned  to  do 
many  things  by  doing.  He  touched  the  realities  which  in  them- 
selves gave  insight  and  power.  There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that 
the  success  which  the  little  red  schoolhouse  was  able  to  obtain  with 
its  short  term  of  school,  its  inadequate  facilities,  its  poor  teachers 
(measured  by  our  modern  standards),  was  largely  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  pupils  came  to  the  school  with  a  background  of  life  experience, 
and  a  knowledge  of  the  things  which  the  book  only  photographed 


PRACTICAL  ARTS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE      357 

and  symbolized,  which  inspired  them  in  a  short  time  and  under 
unfavorable  conditions  to  master  the  things  of  the  book. 

This  experience  was  distinctly  socializing.  The  boy  came  in 
an  elementary  way  to  understand  the  trials  and  difficulties  and 
achievements,  workmanship,  and  ideals  of  the  artisan.  No  matter 
what  he  became  in  after  life, — the  judge  on  the  bench,  a  lawyer  at 
the  bar,  a  doctor  driving  lonely  roads  at  night,  a  teacher  in  the 
schoolroom,  an  artisan  following  one  of  the  trades  which  his  com- 
munity needed,  —  he  carried  into  his  life  work  a  sympathetic 
understanding  and  appreciation  of  the  work  of  his  fellows  that 
rendered  him  measurably  more  capable  in  his  own  and  bound  him 
and  them  together  in  a  bond  of  appreciation  and  understanding. 

Out  of  this  work  came  a  very  sensible  vocational  guidance.  The 
father  and  the  boy  and  the  neighborhood  came  to  know  what  the 
boy  was  interested  in  and  where  his  largest  success  would  be  made. 
With  the  doors  of  the  trades  opening  up  before  him  at  the 
close  of  his  elementary  schooling,  he  was  able  to  choose  and 
to  follow  in  content  and  with  success  the  work  for  which  he 
was  best  fitted. 

It  should  be  said  by  the  way  of  passing  that  this  elementary 
experience,  during  his  childhood  days,  with  the  tools  and  proc- 
esses of  different  occupations,  particularly  the  one  in  which  he 
became  interested,  gave  him  considerable  elementary  preparation 
and  understanding  of  the  work  which  he  was  to  follow,  and 
was  a  distinct  benefit  to  him  in  mastering  it  in  a  more  serious 
and  thoroughgoing  way  when  he  came  to  his  adolescent  years. 

It  seems  clear  to  all  of  us  that  under  the  conditions  of  modern 
life  the  opportunity  of  the  boy  to  secure  such  real  experience  out- 
side the  school  has,  to  a  very  great  extent  at  least,  disappeared. 
Trades  have  become  factoryized.  Large-scale  production  has  not 
only  taken  the  ownership  of  tools  from  the  worker,  but  it  has  har- 
nessed him  as  a  machine-hand  to  one  machine  under  the  shop 
roof  where  he  may  serve  all  his  days  in  carrying  on  one  process, 
making  one  small  part  of  the  finished  output  of  the  establishment. 
Seldom,  if  ever,  does  the  boy  of  tender  years  have  an  opportunity 
to  get  beyond  the  factory  gate  to  even  witness  the  work  which  is 
being  carried  on  beyond  it. 


358  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Children  have  become  herded  together  in  great  cities ;  the  popu- 
lation is  becoming  more  and  more  urban ;  children  live  huddled 
together  in  apartment  houses  ;  even  playgrounds  are  difficult  to 
secure.  The  school  term  has  been  lengthened  from  four  months 
to  ten,  and  the  pupils  are  being  crammed  and  saturated  with  the 
things  of  the  book,  which  at  best  are  only  photographs  or  summa- 
tions of  the  life  experience  denied  most  of  them.  Of  course, 
children  do  have  life  experience,  but  it  is  the  experience  of  the 
superficial  observer  of  the  rapidly  changing  phenomena  around 
them,  and  not  the  kind  with  which  in  former  days  they  had  an 
opportunity  to  come  into  intimate  contact  and  in  which  they 
were  able  to  participate  actively  with  brain  and  with  hand. 

All  the  arguments  that  are  being  used  to-day  to  show  the  neces- 
sity of  vocational  direction  and  guidance  for  children  facing  the 
complexities  of  our  modern  industrial  and  commercial  life  point 
at  the  same  time  to  the  need  of  securing  for  children  in  some  way 
the  kind  of  life  experience,  before  they  become  fourteen  years  of 
age,  which  will  give  some  basis  upon  which  they  and  those  guid- 
ing and  directing  them  may  deal  intelligently  with  the  problem  of 
placing  them  in  proper  schools,  in  giving  them  proper  training,  and 
in  placing  them  in  the  callings  of  life  for  which  they  are  best  suited. 

THE  SCHOOL  MUST  FURNISH  REAL  LIFE  EXPERIENCE 

If  it  be  submitted  that  practical  experience  with  the  realities  of 
things  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  training  of  the  child  between 
twelve  and  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  if  it  be  admitted  further  that 
under  modern  conditions  it  is  not  possible  for  the  child  to  secure  this 
training  as  he  should  in  his  environment  outside  the  school,  then  the 
duty  and  responsibility  rests  upon  the  school,  as  the  agent  of  the 
state  for  the  welfare  of  childhood,  to  give  it  under  the  school  roof. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  it  may  be  truthfully  said  that  to  a  very 
great  extent  in  the  past  the  result  of  the  training  of  the  elementary 
school,  and  of  the  high  school  as  well,  has  been  to  select  by  elimi- 
nation, closing  the  door  from  time  to  time,  by  a  system  of  tests 
and  examinations,  against  all  those  who  were  not  able  to  respond 
successfully  to  the  kind  of  studies  that  were  being  offered  in  the 


PRACTICAL  ARTS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE      359 

schools  and  to  the  demand  upon  the  capacity  of  the  child  in  deal- 
ing with  abstractions.  More  and  more,  in  our  theory  of  the  Ameri- 
can public-school  system,  we  are  swinging  around  to  the  idea  that 
it  is  to  be  the  mission  of  the  schools  in  the  future  to  select  and 
to  adjust  boys  and  girls  for  life  by  having  them  undergo  varied 
experiences  in  order  to  uncover  their  varied  tastes  and  aptitudes 
and  to  direct  and  to  train  them  in  the  avenues  for  which  they 
display  the  most  capacity. 

Such  a  program  as  this  would  require  a  differentiation  of  the 
course  of  study  for  pupils  between  twelve  and  fourteen  years  of 
age.  The  amount  of  difference  in  the  course  of  study  for  different 
kinds  of  pupils  in  any  given  school  system  would  of  course  depend 
upon  the  size  of  the  city,  the  extent  of  its  resources,  the  size  of 
the  building,  the  number  of  different  groups  of  pupils  dealt  with, 
and  the  size  of  each  group. 

POSSIBILITIES  OF  THE  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL 

In  a  city  of  50,000  people  the  usual  elementary  school  might 
well  offer  for  the  seventh  and  eighth  years  a  high-school  prepara- 
tory course,  a  commercial  course,  a  household  arts  course  for  girls, 
and  a  practical  arts  course  for  boys.  All  the  pupils  from  these 
different  groups  could  well  take,  in  the  same  classes  if  neces- 
sary, the  same  work  in  English,  history,  civics,  music,  drawing, 
penmanship,  physical  training,  which  would  occupy  at  least  half 
of  a  lengthened  day  in  the  schoolroom.  They  would  separate 
from  each  other  for  different  work  in  the  lines  in  which  they 
were  being  tested. 

Pupils  in  the  high-school  preparatory  course,  who  were  in  it 
because  it  was  already  determined  that  they  were  to  go  to  high 
school  and  to  college,  could  take  courses  in  elementary  algebra  and 
in  a  foreign  language.  The  elementary  algebra  would  be  as  good, 
or  better,  training  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  high  school  as  any 
other  course.  The  foreign  language  could  be  taken  up  at  a  time 
when  the  child  was  better  prepared  to  deal  with  it.  It  is  a  well- 
known  fact  that  one  of  the  great  difficulties  in  the  teaching  of  for- 
eign languages  in  the  high  schools  is  that  pupils  take  them  at  a 
time  when  the  language  instinct  is  at  an  ebb  rather  than  at  the  flow. 


360  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Pupils  taking  the  commercial  course  would  be  those  who  were 
going  out  to  commercial  life  at  fourteen,  or  going  into  the  com- 
mercial department  of  the  regular  high  school,  or  going  out  to  the 
private  commercial  college,  or  intending  after  the  regular  high- 
school  course  to  fit  themselves  to  enter  business  life.  These  should 
take,  in  the  differentiated  work  between  twelve  and  fourteen,  rich 
courses  in  the  keeping  of  simple  accounts,  commercial  arithmetic, 
commercial  geography,  and  probably  should  be  given  some  ele- 
mentary experience  in  handling  a  typewriter.  Such  commercial 
arithmetic  and  geography  is  just  as  good  as  any  which  the  schools 
have  ever  offered,  and,  because  it  appeals  to  the  interests  of  these 
pupils,  is  better  than  any  other. 

Girls  taking  the  course  in  household  arts  between  twelve  and 
fourteen  would  be  girls  who  were  going  out  to  the  factory  to  spend, 
on  the  average,  six  years  before  taking  up  home-making  in  their 
homes,  or  who  were  going  to  the  high  school  for  a  year  or  two 
and  then  going  home  to  await  marriage,  or  who  expect  to  take  the 
household-arts  training  offered  by  the  regular  high  school.  These 
should  have  rich  courses,  in  a  lengthened  day,  in  cooking,  with  the 
"  how  "  and  "  why  "  of  the  work  ;  sewing  and  hat  trimming,  with 
the  "how"  and  the  "why"  ;  sanitation  and  hygiene  of  the  home; 
household  decoration ;  and  some  little  elementary  experience  in 
the  problem  of  the  care  of  the  sick. 

Boys  wanting  the  training  in  practical  arts  would  be  boys  who 
at  fourteen  were  going  to  make  a  choice  of  some  wage-earning 
occupation,  or  who  were  going  to  enter  some  industrial  or  trade 
school,  or  who  were  going  to  take  the  manual-training  work  in  a 
regular  high  school  or  enter  a  technical  high  school.  These  should 
have  rich  courses  in  the  practical  arts,  with  the  "how"  and  the 
"  why  "  of  the  process  given  whenever  possible,  industrial  arith- 
metic, industrial  geography,  and  elementary  drawing  closely  related 
to  the  work  which  they  were  doing  in  the  shop. 

The  high  school  claims  that  what  it  wants  is  trained  minds 
rather  than  any  particular  content  or  book  experience  leading  up  to 
its  work.  If  this  be  true,  then  any  one  of  these  courses  is  as  good 
a  preparation,  at  least  for  the  general  course  in  the  high  school, 
as  any  other  course  of  instruction.  Pupils  taking  any  one  of  these 


PRACTICAL  ARTS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE      361 

courses,  who  decide  after  graduating  from  the  elementary  school 
that  they  wished  to  attend  the  regular  high  school,  would  be  in  as 
good  a  position  as  any  other  pupils  to  take  its  work.  So  far  as  the 
door  of  opportunity  leading  out  to  the  regular  high  school,  they 
would  not  be  injured,  to  say  the  least,  by  the  kind  of  elementary- 
school  experience  which  they  had  received. 

Nor  is  there  any  reason  why,  between  the  ages  of  twelve  and 
fourteen,  a  flexible  arrangement  of  the  school  program  should  not 
permit  the  pupils  in  any  one  of  these  courses  to  receive  some 
experience  in  some  of  the  other  courses  as  a  test  of  their  interest 
and  their  capacity. 

It  goes  almost  without  saying  that  after  such  an  experience  in 
the  upper  grades  of  the  elementary  school,  boys  and  girls,  upon 
graduating,  would  be  in  a  position  to  face  either  some  calling  or 
further  schooling  much  better  prepared  to  make  an  intelligent 
choice  of  what  they  should  do  than  they  can  be  under  the  present 
school  regime,  under  which  most  of  them  know  only  that  they 
have  or  have  not  been  able  to  respond  successfully  to  the  tests 
which  have  been  set  up  in  the  academic  work. 

Where  courses  in  the  practical  arts  and  in  the  household  arts 
were  offered  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  years  of  the  work,  the 
administration  should  be  so  flexible  as  to  permit  boys  and  girls 
twelve  years  of  age,  who  were  retarded  in  their  work  so  that  they 
had  not  reached  the  seventh  year  of  the  course,  to  receive  the 
benefit  of  the  instruction  irrespective  of  the  question  of  where  they 
might  be  located  in  the  graded  schools.  This  training  in  the  prac- 
tical arts  would  probably  be  of  more  benefit  to  this  kind  of  boys 
and  girls  than  to  any  other.  Practically  all  of  them  will  leave  school 
at  fourteen  years  of  age  or  seek  to  enter  an  industrial  school. 
They  must  make  a  choice  of  some  wage-earning  occupation.  They 
need  perhaps  most  of  all  to  have  such  experience  between  twelve 
and  fourteen  years  of  age  as  will  help  them,  when  they  reach  the 
period  of  compulsory  education,  to  make  an  intelligent  choice  of  an 
occupation.  Every  experience  goes  to  show  that  these  retarded 
boys  and  girls  who  were  not  able  to  measure  up  to  the  things  of 
the  book  are  able  to  learn  by  doing.  When  they  are  taught  such 
subjects  as  spelling  and  arithmetic  in  connection  with  the  work 


362  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

which  they  are  doing  with  their  hands,  they  are  able  to  grasp  them 
much  better  because  they  are  being  taught  on  the  basis  of  the 
actual  experience  which  they  are  receiving. 

CONTENT  OF  WORK  IN  PRACTICAL  ARTS  FOR  BOYS 

This  paper  will  from  this  point  direct  its  attention  entirely  to 
the  question  of  training  in  the  practical  arts  for  boys  between 
twelve  and  fourteen  years  of  age.  If  this  training  in  the  practical 
arts  is  to  help  boys  to  find  themselves,  in  order  that  at  fourteen 
they  may  make  an  intelligent  choice  of  their  work  for  the  future, 
it  must  be  varied.  A  course  in  woodworking,  excellent  as  it  may 
be,  only  reveals  whether  or  not  the  boy  responds  to  it  with  his 
interest  and  aptitude.  A  course  in  metal  working  alone  will  deter- 
mine only  whether  or  not  he  is  adapted  to  that  work.  A  course  in 
printing  alone  shows  whether  or  not  he  has  any  tendency  toward 
the  printer's  trade.  What  we  need  is  not  a  course  in  woodwork- 
ing or  a  course  in  metal  working,  but  an  organization  of  training 
in  the  practical  arts  during  the  seventh  and  eighth  years  which  will 
include  experiences  drawn  from  many  different  fields  of  employ- 
ment, such  as  woodworking,  metal  working,  electrical  working, 
printing,  bookbinding,  leather  working,  clay  working,  and  garden- 
ing. These  should  not  be  known  as  courses  at  all,  but  should  con- 
sist of  a  series  of  jobs,  projects,  enterprises,  tasks — call  them  what 
you  will  —  taken  some  from  one  field  and  some  from  another. 
The  progress  of  the  boy  through  the  school  in  a  given  year  should 
be  stated  in  terms  of  a  series  of  experiences,  some  of  them  in  wood, 
some  in  metal,  some  in  printing,  some  in  electrical  work,  etc. 

The  boy  should  follow  these  as  a  series  of  carefully  graduated 
experiences,  each  one  being  taken  up  when,  as  the  result  of  his 
previous  training,  he  is  able  to  deal  with  it.  The  work  might  be 
arranged  so  that  he  gave  his  time  in  the  shop  for  a  certain  period  — 
a  month  or  so — to  wood,  then  to  metal,  then  to  electrical  work,  then 
to  printing,  etc.  It  is  believed,  however,  that  the  best  results  would 
be  secured  by  having  him  assigned  jobs  from  different  fields  rather 
indiscriminately,  a  job  in  metal  working  following  one  in  wood,  a 
job  in  electrical  work  following  one  in  printing.  These  shop  tasks 
he  should  follow  individually  rather  than  as  a  member  of  a  group. 


PRACTICAL  ARTS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE      363 

There  is  no  reason  why  all  the  pupils  in  the  class  should  be  work- 
ing upon  the  same  kind  of  a  job  at  the  same  time,  nor  that  they 
should  be  working  upon  different  jobs  from  the  same  field  of 
industry  the  same  moment. 

A  course  of  training  in  the  practical  arts  like  that  described 
above  would  require  a  varied  rather  than  an  extensive  equipment. 
Instead  of  duplicating  tools  and  machines  so  as  to  provide  every 
pupil  with  a  carpenter's  bench,  every  pupil  with  a  case  of  type, 
every  pupil  with  a  lathe,  every  pupil  with  a  doorbell  and  battery, 
just  a  few  pieces  of  equipment  necessary  in  order  to  give  the  boy 
experience  in  any  occupation  would  be  necessary,  the  pupils  being 
taught  individually  and  being  shifted  about  so  as  to  permit  the 
varied  equipment  of  the  shop  to  keep  them  all  busy  at  different 
tasks.  The  total  cost  of  the  equipment  necessary  to  do  this  would 
certainly  not  be  any  more,  and  would  probably  be  less,  than  that 
of  the  present  method  of  duplicating  pieces  in  order  to  teach 
pupils  by  the  group  method. 

Some  cities  have  some  of  their  ward  or  elementary-school  build- 
ings located  near  each  other.  Where  this  is  true,  it  would  be 
possible  to  secure  varied  experience  in  different  practical  arts  for 
boys  by  having  each  one  of  these  buildings  devote  its  attention  to 
arts  or  lines  of  employment  different  from  that  to  which  each  of 
the  other  buildings  gave  its  attention.  By  shifting  the  pupil  for 
a  portion  of  his  day  or  year  from  one  building  to  another,  these 
buildings  through  cooperation  could  secure  training  in  various 
activities  for  the  boys. 

PROBLEMS  CONFRONTING  THE  TEACHER 

If  the  interest  and  capacity  of  the  boy  is  to  be  properly  tested, 
the  experience  which  he  receives  in  the  school  shop  should  be  made 
as  real  as  possible.  This  means  that  the  instructor  in  charge  of 
the  work  should  have  at  least  some  elementary  knowledge  of  the 
industry  dealt  with.  For  the  purpose  of  this  prevocational  train- 
ing he  need  not  be  a  journeyman  or  master  of  the  calling,  but  he 
should  have  a  sufficient  contact  with  it  to  be  able  to  bring  some 
of  its  atmosphere  into  the  schoolroom.  There  are  probably  some 
excellent  instructors  in  manual  training  for  boys  in  this  country 


364  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to-day  who  are  women,  but  the  burden  of  proof  rests  upon  him 
who  proposes  a  woman  as  teacher  of  the  practical  arts  for  boys 
to  show  that  she  has  had  such  experience  and  possesses  such 
ability  as  to  render  her  an  exception  to  the  general  presumption 
that  the  teachers  of  this  work  should  be  men. 

The  work  should  be  carried  on  as  nearly  like  the  actual  shop  as 
possible  ;  otherwise  the  experience  lacks  reality.  This  does  not  at 
all  mean  that  in  the  instruction  an  attempt  should  be  made  to  reach 
shop  standards  of  workmanship.  In  the  earlier  days,  boys  had  an 
opportunity  to  tinker  in  an  elementary  way  at  different  occupations. 
The  work  was  valuable  to  them  not  because  shop  standards  were 
reached  but  because  they  had  an  opportunity  through  it  to  find  out 
whether  they  responded  to  it.  The  aim  of  the  work  should  not 
be  large  skill  but  life  experience.  Ideals  of  workmanship  for  the 
boys  in  the  shop  are  good  and  to  some  extent  necessary,  but  they 
should  not  be  approached  through  refined  work  on  a  few  limited 
tasks  to  the  point  of  defeating  the  larger  aim  of  helping  the  boy 
to  find  himself. 

At  the  best  it  will  be  impossible  for  the  school  to  make  this 
work  in  practical  arts  so  real  as  to  present  to  the  child  the  work 
as  it  is  carried  on  in  the  industry.  Every  place  where  the  local 
community  has  the  work  which  is  being  done  in  the  school  carried 
on  in  a  shop  or  factory,  arrangements  should  be  made  to  have  the 
boy  visit  the  establishment  and  secure  an  opportunity,  under  favor- 
able conditions,  to  see  grown  men  carrying  on  the  work  on  a  large 
scale  which  he  is  attempting  to  do  as  a  boy  would  do  it  under  the 
school  roof.  In  this  way  the  manufacturing  establishments,  shops, 
and  farms  of  the  community  would  be  made  to  cooperate  with 
the  school  in  bringing  the  boy  into  contact  with  the  work  of 
the  world  so  that  he  might  choose  from  it  that  which  he  is  best 
adapted  to  pursue. 

ACTIVITY  MUST  HAVE  PRACTICAL  OUTCOME 

Pupils  should  be  taught  individually  rather  than  by  the  group 
method.  The  work  should  be  put  on  a  productive  rather  than  on 
an  exercise  basis.  The  shop  should  make  useful  things  to  be 
utilized  by  the  school  or  by  the  school  system.  Every  experience 


PRACTICAL  ARTS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE      365 

goes  to  show  that  boys  are  much  more  interested  in  making  things 
which  are  to  be  used  in  the  school  system,  and  through  which  the 
boys  are  conscious  of  the  fact  that  they  are  contributing  something 
that  is  useful,  than  they  are  in  making  a  taboret  for  sister's  parlor. 
Somewhere  in  the  course  there  should  be  work  done  by  the  boy 
that  smacks  of  the  time  element  and  approach  of  the  shop  outside. 
Where  pupils  make  parts  of  things,  all  should  get  an  experience 
sometime  of  making  parts  and  assembling  those  parts  into  the 
finished  product. 

The  experience  which  the  boy  undergoes  in  the  shop  should  be 
made  educative  for  him.  He  should  do  there  something  more  than 
merely  use  his  hands.  On  every  job  which  he  performs  every 
opportunity  should  be  utilized  for  whatever  drawing,  arithmetic, 
spelling,  and  even  composition  work  will  enable  him  to  do  the  job 
better  and  to  gain  power  in  the  use  of  related  academic  work. 

NECESSARY  MODIFICATION  OF  MANUAL  TRAINING 

Such  a  program  would  not  be  a  difficult  or  complicated  one  were 
it  not  so  totally  at  variance  with  the  present  practice  of  the  schools. 
The  large  results  to  be  obtained  from  the  work  justify  its  introduc- 
tion, though  a  more  flexible  administration  of  both  academic  and 
manual-training  work  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  years  would  be 
necessary.  It  seems  certain  that  to  carry  out  such  a  program  more 
time  would  have  to  be  given  for  manual  training,  or  training  in  the 
practical  arts,  than  at  present.  This  might  be  secured  by  the  substi- 
tution of  such  work  for  other  required  subjects.  It  would  probably 
be  best  secured  by  lengthening  the  school  day.  Advocates  of  the 
lengthened  school  day  point  out  that  if  pupils  gave  half  their  time 
to  actual  work  with  their  hands,  rather  than  close  attention  to  books, 
a  longer  school  day  would  not  only  not  be  burdensome  but  bene- 
ficial to  them  physically  as  well  as  otherwise.  It  is  certain  that  if 
we  are  to  accomplish  anything  worth  while  in  working  with  the 
hands  with  children  between  twelve  and  fourteen  years  of  age,  we 
must  give  more  time  to  the  work  in  the  program  than  the  average 
of  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  per  day  which  in  most  cases  is  allotted 
the  practical  work,  thereby  giving  it  the  same  importance  in  the 


366  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

curriculum  as  music  and  spelling.  We  need  wider  experience  and 
training  for  the  instructors.  Woodworking  and  metal  working  have 
been  the  only  lines  of  training  for  which  they  have  been  prepared 
in  our  schools.  They  need  not  only  preparation  for  different  lines 
of  work  in  the  schools  but  a  wider  and  more  intimate  contact  with 
other  lines  of  industry.  In  order  to  attract  desirable  teachers  to 
the  work,  who  will  be  willing  to  make  such  preparation  and  secure 
such  experience,  there  should  be  more  salary  for  the  capable. 
Above  all,  there  needs  to  be  in  all  quarters  a  greater  recognition 
of  the  place  and  the  value  of  training  in  the  practical  arts  in  the 
elementary  schools,  both  for  its  educative  benefit  to  the  pupils  and 
as  an  indispensable  part  of  any  successful  attempt  to  give  proper 
vocational  guidance  to  the  adolescent. 

It  is  not  denied  that  the  program  set  out  above  raises  some  prob- 
lems new  in  character,  doubtless  some  that  are  difficult  of  solution 
from  the  administrative  standpoint,  which  cannot  be  discussed  in 
detail  here.  I  have  attempted  to  formulate  some  of  these  questions 
as  follows  : 

SOME  QUESTIONS  FOR  SOLUTION 

1.  Should  all  children  of  twelve  to  fourteen  years  be  required  to  take  some 
training  in  the  practical  arts  ? 

2.  What  difference  in  amount  and  kind  should  be  made  in  the  training  as 
between  those  strongest  in  book  work  and  those  strongest  in  manual  work? 

3.  Should  this  training  in  the  practical  arts  be  restricted  to  those  who  have 
reached  the  seventh  grade  at  twelve  years  of  age  or  should  all  children,  even 
if  they  are  retarded  in  their  work,  who  need  the  work  be  given  it? 

4.  How  much  experience  in  an  industry  or  occupation  should  an  instructor 
have  in  order  to  teach  it  as  a  part  of  prevocational  training  in  the  practical  arts  ? 

5.  What  changes  should  be  made  in  the  preparation  of  teachers  of  manual 
training  in  the  practical  arts  as  now  given,  in  order  to  fit  them  properly  to  carry 
on  such  training  as  shall  serve  effectually  as  a  part  of  a  program  of  prevoca- 
tional guidance  and  education  ? 

6.  How  many  teachers  of  practical  arts  in  the  upper  grades  of  the  ele- 
mentary schools  secure  necessary  experience  in  lines  of  industry  or  occupations 
with  which  they  are  expected  to  deal  ? 

7.  What  should  be  the  time  allotment  for  training  in  the  practical  arts? 

8.  What  are  the  kinds  or  types  of  jobs  or  experiences  or  enterprises  from 
each  of  the  practical  arts,  such  as  gardening,  metal  working,  woodworking, 
electrical  working,  printing,  bookbinding,  cement  working,  clay  working,  that 
the  schools  should  give? 


J 

PRACTICAL  ARTS  AND  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE      367 

9.  To  what  extent  should  the  school  add  to  the  list  of  practical  arts  others 
carried  on  by  the  local  community  ? 

10.  How  can  the  instructors  in  the  practical  arts  aid  in  giving  proper  voca- 
tional guidance  and  direction  to  the  pupils? 

1 1 .  What  should  the  school  authorities  do  with  the  output  of  the  work  in 
the  practical  arts? 

1 2.  What  are  the  working  programs  for  such  training  in  the  practical  arts, 
for  those  twelve  to  fourteen  years  of  age,  which  seem  best  for  typical  or  repre- 
sentative school  units  in  cities  and  towns  of  varied  and  given  populations  ? 

13.  Should  the  school  day  be  lengthened  in  order  to  give  the  training,  or 
can  it  be  given  in  the  present  school  day  by  substituting  it  for  some  work 
now  required? 

14.  If  proper  time  allotment  is  secured  by  substitution,  in  place  of  what 
other  work  should  it  be  offered? 

15.  To  what  extent  should  this  school  training  in  the  practical  arts  be  sup- 
plemented by  visits  to  places  in  the  community  where  they  are  being  practiced 
commercially  ? 

1 6.  To  what  extent  should  the  job  or  enterprise  be  used  as  the  means,  or 
center,  or  core  of  instruction  of  the  boy  in  related  arithmetic,  drawing,  English, 
geography,  civics,  etc.  ? 

1 7.  What  would  be  the  best  equipment  for  a  two-year  course  of  training  in 
the  practical  arts,  for  a  group  of  twenty  boys,  in  which  the  jobs  or  experiences  of 
the  pupil  were  drawn  from  a  number  of  different  occupations  or  employments? 

1 8.  From  what  practical  arts  should  the  experiences  be  drawn  for  a  course 
of  training  as  a  basis  for  the  vocational  guidance  of  girls,  and  what  would  be 
the  best  equipment  for  such  a  course  in  meeting  the  needs  of  a  group  of 
twenty  girls? 

19.  To  what  extent,  by  cooperation  between  different  elementary-school 
buildings  each  equipped  to  give  work  in  only  one  or  two  practical  arts,  could 
pupils  be  interchanged  for  a  part  of  the  day  so  as  to  give  them  varied  experi- 
ence in  activities  drawn  from  a  number  of  different  arts  ? 

20.  How  may  we  best  impress  school  authorities  with  the  great  educative 
as  well  as  social  and  economic  value  of  the  right  kind  of  work  in  the  practical 
arts,  for  children  twelve  to  fourteen  years  of  age,  so  that  it  may  cease  to  be 
a  mere  appetizer  for  academic  activities  and  be  given  its  proper  place  and. 
opportunity  in  the  work  of  the  school? 


SELECTING  YOUNG   MEN   FOR  PARTICULAR  JOBS 

BY  HERMAN  SCHNEIDER,  DEAN  OF  THE  COLLEGE  OF  ENGINEERING, 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CINCINNATI 

(From  the  American  Machinist,  April  10,  1913) 

Several  years  ago  two  young  men  appeared  at  my  office  to  apply 
for  admission  to  the  cooperative  course.  Although  they  came  to- 
gether, they  were  not  mutually  acquainted,  one  being  from  Kansas 
and  the  other  from  Ohio.  They  were  of  the  same  physical  build  ; 
they  had  the  same  facial  characteristics  ;  their  scholarship  records 
were  equally  good ;  and  both  said  they  felt  an  impulse  toward 
mechanical  engineering.  Both  looked  like  good  material.  The 
conversation  disclosed  no  radical  or  even  slight  differences  in 
their  personalities.  They  gave  promise  of  being  a  good  "pair" 
and  consequently  were  sent  to  the  same  machine  shop. 

In  due  process  of  events  a  coordinator  from  the  engineering 
college  called  at  the  machine  shop.  The  foreman  said  Kansas  was 
satisfactory,  but  Ohio  didn't  get  into  the  work.  Each  time  the 
coordinator  called,  the  foreman  reported  Kansas  as  most  satisfac- 
tory and  Ohio  as  more  and  more  unsatisfactory.  In  a  month  Kansas 
was  turning  out  his  work  with  the  ease,  sureness,  and  dexterity  of 
an  old  hand,  while  Ohio  was  getting  a  case  of  nerves,  spoiling  work, 
and  developing  fatigue.  The  superintendent  asked  us  to  try  Ohio 
elsewhere,  but  we  ^  decided  for  a  number  of  reasons  to  continue 
him  in  the  shop  a  little  longer. 

In  the  university,  however,  Kansas  was  soon  reported  to  my 
office  as  utterly  hopeless.  His  scholastic  grades  were  almost  zero 
in  all  his  subjects.  He  gave  no  reactions  at  all  in  class  and  labora- 
tory work.  His  teachers  said  he  was  stupid.  But  Ohio  came  to  his 
school  work  with  avidity.  He  was  mentally  keen  and  seemed  to 
delight  in  his  work. 

368 


SELECTING  YOUNG  MEN  FOR  PARTICULAR  JOBS      369 

Kansas  grew  nervous  over  his  school  work,  Ohio  thrived  on  it. 
Kansas  at  school  was  tired  out  at  10.30  each  morning ;  Ohio  got 
better  as  the  hours  went  by.  Kansas  longed  for  the  rest  which  shop 
work  gave  him ;  Ohio  longed  for  the  rest  which  school  work  gave 
him.  Careful  tests  and  conference  showed  conclusively  that  Kansas 
broke  under  mental  work,  mental  responsibility,  and  self -directed 
and  diversified  manual  work,  but  that  he  expanded  in  spirit,  health, 
and  satisfaction  under  repetitive  shop  processes  which  were  planned 
for  him.  Similar  tests  and  conferences  showed  that  Ohio  broke 
under  the  strain  of  directed  repetitive  processes,  and  to  a  lesser 
degree  under  self-directed  and  diversified  manual  work,  but  that 
he  thrived  when  given  mental  problems  and  responsibility. 

We  have  lost  track  of  Kansas,  but  Ohio  is  happy  and  successful 
in  commercial  life. 

There  comes  to  mind  another  young  man,  who  called  one  morn- 
ing and  presented  a  splendid  scholarship  record  from  a  rigorous 
high  school.  He  was  a  most  attractive  youngster — sturdy,  clear 
eyed,  and  cheerful,  but  he  had  not  the  faintest  idea  what  he  wanted 
to  do  for  a  life  work.  The  whole  world  looked  good  to  him,  but 
no  lead  I  made  could  discover  any  particular  bent.  He  smilingly 
offered  to  try  anything,  and  finally  offered  to  try  everything  we 
had  so  as  to  arrive  at  something  by  process  of  elimination. 

We  started  him  at  foundry  work.  He  did  n't  like  it,  so  he  went 
cheerfully  from  one^type  of  work  to  another  for  two  years,  always 
working  hard  and  faithfully,  but  without  satisfaction,  either  to  him- 
self or  to  his  employers.  His  school  work  was  excellent  except  in 
technical  courses.  All  this  time  we  were  taking  account  of  his 
talents.  Certain  characteristics  began  to  stand  out,  and  one  day  the 
question  was  put  to  him  bluntly,  "  Blank,  how  would  you  like  to 
be  a  librarian  ?  "  His  response  might  possibly  be  called  a  grateful, 
unanimous  yell.  So  he  is  now  making  progress  in  a  library  school. 

Cases  similar  in  kind  but  highly  dissimilar  in  detail  to  those  cited 
could  be  given  by  the  dozen.  We  have  found,  for  example,  that 
some  young  men  cannot  grow  in  all  their  parts  in  indoor  work, 
and  others  like  it  and  thrive  on  it ;  some  must  have  roving  work 
(such  as  the  railroads  furnish),  while  others  are  upset  by  it  and  are 
happy  only  in  a  settled  job ;  some  like  to  fuss  over  a  little  piece  of 


37°  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

intricate  mechanism,  while  others  like  a  hurly-burly  task  of  big 
dimensions  ;  some  chafe  under  accurate  directions,  which  elimi- 
nate personal  initiative,  while  others  produce  cheerfully  under 
them ;  some  evade  responsibility,  while  others  assume  it  naturally. 


GREATEST  EFFICIENCY  WHEN  WORK  IS  SATISFACTORY 

Now  a  man  is  most  efficient  when  his  work  gives  him  the  greatest 
satisfaction ;  when  he  is  doing  the  thing  his  Creator  intended  he 
should  do.  Every  working  man,  from  the  hewer  of  wood  and  drawer 
of  water  to  the  research  scientist,  should  get  three  things  out  of 
his  work  :  first,  mental  and  physical  development  and  discipline ; 
second,  joy  in  doing  it  (or  at  least  satisfaction) ;  and  third,  a  decent 
living.  And  the  man  who  has  found  the  job  his  soul  is  blindly 
craving,  the  job  for  which  he  has  inborn  talents,  gets  these.  But 
the  man  whose  whole  being  revolts  at  his  task  becomes  a  captious 
citizen,  an  inefficient  worker,  and  a  meager  earner. 

Under  present  conditions  our  youth  blunder  into  jobs ;  the 
gambling  odds  against  their  finding  work  suited  to  their  tempera- 
ments and  talents  are  too  high,  for  there  are  many  types  of  work 
and  usually  but  one  general  type  will  fit  any  single  individual. 
There  is  no  method  or  agency  to  determine  the  general  type  of 
work  for  which  a  youth  is  talented  and  to  classify  the  various 
jobs  which  fall  under  this  type. 

1  Unfortunately,  work  has  been  classified  heretofore  by  the  mate- 
;  •  rials  used  or  produced  rather  than  by  the  characteristics  necessary 
'{•>  for  success  in  it.  Thus,  if  a  boy  were  successful  in  wood-shop  work, 
he  was  told  he  would  make  a  good  carpenter  ;  however,  wood  turn- 
ing in  a  shop  and  outdoor  carpentry  are  dissimilar  types,  while 
wood  turning  in  a  shop  and  metal  turning  in  a  shop  are  similar 
types.  The  fact  that  work  is  becoming  more  subdivided  and  more 
intensified  makes  the  situation  more  acute,  and  the  problem  be- 
comes a  national  one.  A  nation,  especially  a  self-governing  nation, 
many  of  whose  self-governors  do  not  get  the  three  returns  mentioned 
out  of  their  work,  is  not  a  stable  nation. 

Every  individual  has  certain  broad  characteristics,  and  every  type 
of  work  requires  certain  broad  characteristics.  The  problem  then 


SELECTING  YOUNG  MEN  FOR  PARTICULAR  JOBS     371 

is  to  state  the  broad  characteristics,  to  devise  a  rational  method  to 
discover  these  characteristics  (or  talents)  in  individuals,  to  classify 
the  types  of  jobs  by  the  talents  they  require,  and  to  guide  the 
youth  with  certain  talents  into  the  type  of  job  which  requires  those 
talents.  This  is  a  big  problem,  but  one  possible  of  measurable 
solution,  or,  at  worst,  possible  of  a  solution  immeasurably  superior 
to  our  present  haphazard  methods. 

In  seven  years  of  cooperative  work  at  the  University  of  Cincin- 
nati, we  have  had  experience  with  about  five  hundred  cooperative 
students.  As  with  the  young  men,  Ohio  and  Kansas,  so  with  other 
students,  marked  characteristics  in  time  stand  out.  These  we  have 
classified,  and  they  now  constitute  a  sort  of  guide  to  us  in  helping 
students  to  find  themselves.  The  list  is  by  no  means  considered 
as  final;  future  experience  will  modify  it,  of  course.  But  it  does 
furnish  a  rational  basis  of  broad  selection. 

It  is  realized  also  that  our  work  is  principally  in  cooperation  with 
manufacture,  construction,  and  transportation  ;  other  broad  charac- 
teristics would  probably  be  listed  if  we  had  similar  relations  with 
commerce,  law,  medicine,  and  religion.  And  since  the  object  of 
this  paper  is  to  point  out  what  appears  to  us  as  a  rational  begin- 
ning of  vocational  guidance,  criticism  of  the  characteristics  given 
is  looked  for  in  hope  rather  than  in  fear. 

THE  MAJOR  CHARACTERISTICS 

(a)  In  many  occupations  physical  strength  is  an  essential ;  for 
example,  in  dray  ing,  stone  masonry,  and  baggage  handling.     In 
others  it  is  not ;  for  example,  in  bookkeeping,  telephone  installing, 
and  piano  tuning.  Mankind  ranges  from  the  almost  helpless  cripple 
to  the  physical  giant.    We  therefore  have  the  two  characteristics, 
physical  strength  and  physical  weakness. 

(b)  I  have  in  mind  a  number  of  our  students  who  were  utter 
failures  at  all  kinds  of  work  requiring  manual  dexterity  but  who 
maintained  uniformly  good  grades  in  all  their  school  work.    Their 
efficiency  was  all  head  efficiency.    There  have  been  a  number  also 
who  were  hopeless  in  all  their  university  work  but  whose  hands 
acquired  skill  easily.   Their  efficiency  was  all  hand  efficiency. 


372  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  first  type  might  make  good  designers,  inspectors,  executives, 
or  writers,  but  unlike  the  second  type  would  drag  out  hopeless 
existences  as  machinists,  molders,  masons,  or  piano  makers.  Of 
course  most  of  our  students  possess  both  efficiencies.  Our  expe- 
rience has  taught  us  that  some  men  are  mental  and  some  are 
manual,  while  some  are  both. 

(c)  There  is  a  type  of  man  who  wants  to  get  on  the  same  car 
every  morning,  get  off  at  the  same  corner,  go  to  the  same  shop, 
ring  up  at  the  same  clock,  stow  his  lunch  in  the  same  locker,  go 
to  the  same  machine,  and  do  the  same  class  of  work  day  after  day. 
Another  type  of  man  would  go  crazy  under  this  routine  ;  he  wants 
to  move  about,  meet  new  people,  see  and  do  new  things.   The  first 
is  settled  ;  the  second  is  roving.    The  first  might  make  a  good  man 
for  a  shop  manufacturing  a  standard  product ;  the  second  might 
make  a  good  railroad  man  or  a  good  outdoor  carpenter. 

Recently  two  of  my  students  were  not  doing  well ;  both  were 
getting  into  a  condition  of  unrest.  One  was  in  a  railroad  shop  ;  he 
complained  that  every  job  was  different  from  every  other  job,  that 
he  was  sent  here  and  there,  that  there  was  no  continuity  to  the 
work,  and  that  he  was  getting  nervous.  The  other  complained  that 
there  was  not  enough  variety  to  his  work,  that  it  was  too  confining, 
that  he  could  not  move  about  and  do  new  things  all  the  time,  and 
that  he  was  getting  nervous.  We  gave  each  the  other's  place  and 
both  are  swinging  along  and  learning  most  satisfactorily. 

(d)  There  are  two  broad  characteristics  which  are  easily  discover- 
able even  in  first  interviews,  the  indoor  and  the  outdoor.    When  a 
blizzard  is  raging  the  first  type  likes  to  hear  the  roar  of  the  wind 
because  it  heightens  his  sense  of  protection  indoors  and  emphasizes 
the  coziness  of  his  fireplace,  while  the  other  wants  to  go  out  and 
fight  his  way  against  the  storm.   When  the  rigors  of  outdoor  rail- 
road and  construction  work  are  vividly  pictured  to  these  two  types 
of  young  men,  one's  eyes  will  light  up  and  his  muscles  will  get 
tense ;  the  other  will  compact  himself  as  if  for  shelter. 

(e)  We  have  found  two  characteristics  which  are  quickly  brought 
out  in  practical  work  but  which  are  not  so  easily  discernible  in 
school  work.    Some  young  men  naturally  assume  responsibility ; 
others  just  as  naturally  evade  it.    It  is  a  well-known  fact  to  all 


SELECTING  YOUNG  MEN  FOR  PARTICULAR  JOBS      373 

superintendents  that  the  most  productive  workmen  often  make  in- 
efficient foremen,  while  an  inferior  producer  often  makes  a  good 
foreman.  One  man  is  directive  ;  the  other  is  dependent. 

A  drayman  for  a  large  jobbing  house  was  promoted  to  foreman 
of  drays,  at  a  substantial  increase  in  salary,  because  he  was  intelli- 
gent, honest,  sober,  accurate  in  his  deliveries,  careful  to  a  marked 
degree  of  his  team  and  dray,  and  loyal  to  his  employers.  In  his 
new  position  he  worried  and  grew  fretful ;  in  time  he  began  to  fail 
physically ;  finally  he  asked  for  his  old  job,  happiness,  and  efficiency, 
just  about  the  time  his  employers  had  decided  that  he  was  incom- 
petent as  a  foreman. 

(/)  There  are  two  characteristics  which  are  sometimes  confused 
with  those  just  stated,  but  which  are  essentially  distinct.  For  ex- 
ample, we  had  two  students  in  a  large  shop  working  in  the  planning 
department ;  one  was  fertile  in  suggestions,  but  the  other  usually  put 
them  into  effect.  The  first  was  original ;  the  second  was  directive. 

The  man  who  is  original  may  make  a  good  designer,  but  unless 
he  were  also  directive  he  would  make  a  poor  superintendent ; 
he  might  be  a  good  window  dresser  but  not  a  department-store 
manager,  a  writer  but  not  a  publisher,  an  inventor  but  not  a  manu- 
facturer, a  reformer  but  not  a  mayor.  A  partnership  in  which 
one  man  is  directive  and  another  original  is  usually  successful. 
Of  course  one  person  may  possess  both  characteristics. 

Then  there  is  the  man  who  does  only  what  he  is  told  to  do  and 
exactly  as  he  is  told  to  do  it.  He  is  imitative.  He  would  dress  every 
window  like  every  other  window.  He  might  make  a  successful 
milk-wagon  driver,  since  he  would  have  a  fixed  route  and  a  bottle 
of  uniform  size  to  deliver ;  but  he  would  probably  make  an  indif- 
ferent drayman,  since  he  would  not  have  a  fixed  route,  and  origi- 
nality (or  ingenuity)  would  be  needed  to  load  and  unload  unwieldy 
boxes  and  barrels  under  adverse  conditions.  He  might  make  a  good 
machine  molder,  but  not  a  good  floor  molder ;  he  would  probably 
be  successful  and  happy  at  a  punch  press,  but  not  in  a  toolroom. 

(g)  Then  there  are  the  two  types  mentioned  before,  one  of 
which  likes  to  fuss  with  an  intricate  bit  of  mechanism,  while  the 
other  wants  the  task  of  big  dimensions  —  the  watchmaker,  the  en- 
graver, the  inlayer,  the  painter  of  miniatures,  on  the  one  hand  ;  the 


374  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

bridge  builder,  the  steel-mill  worker,  the  train  dispatcher,  the  circus 
man,  on  the  other.  One  has  small  scope  ;  the  other  large  scope. 

(h}  Some  men  can  easily  adapt  themselves  to  any  environment, 
while  others  act  the  same  under  almost  any  circumstances.  One 
takes  the  local  color  like  a  chameleon ;  the  other  is  always  the 
same  monochrome.  One  is  adaptable,  the  other  self -centered  ;  one 
a  salesman,  the  other  a  statistician. 

(i)  There  is  a  distinct  type  which  thinks  and  then  does,  in  con- 
trast to  which  there  is  the  type  which  does  and  then  thinks.  One 
is  deliberate  ;  the  other  impulsive.  The  northern  races  are  usually 
deliberate,  the  southern  impulsive ;  one  controls  its  passions,  the 
other  is  frequently  controlled  by  them.  An  army  of  cool-headed 
officers  and  hot-headed  soldiers  is  a  highly  effective  machine,  but 
in  the  civilian  walks  of  life  the  impulsive  characteristic  is  negative  ; 
that  is  to  say,  there  seems  to  be  no  occupation  in  which  it  is  a 
requisite.  There  are  many  vocations,  however,  in  which  a  man 
must  be  deliberate. 

(/)  Our  cooperation  with  a  piano-building  factory  made  it  neces- 
sary to  secure  men  who  had  a  native  musical  ability —  a  strong  tonal 
sense.  It  was  found  that  this  was  a  requisite  for  success  in  the 
higher  positions ;  hence  the  music  sense  is  included  in  this  list. 
Obviously  the  music  sense  is  necessary  to  the  musician,  to  the 
violin  maker,  and  to  the  piano  tuner.  It  should  be  noted  in  passing 
that  this  is  only  one  of  the  characteristics  needed  for  the  violin 
maker.  He  must  also  be  settled,  manually  accurate,  and  indoor. 
But  the  piano  tuner  must  be  roving. 

(k]  Similarly  our  cooperation  with  the  chemical  industries,  par- 
ticularly the  ink  and  paint  industries,  showed  us  the  necessity  of 
selecting  men  who  possessed  strongly  the  basic  characteristic  of 
color  sense.  It  is  obvious  that  this  characteristic  is  necessary  also 
in  other  occupations,  such  as  house  furnishing,  window  dressing, 
painting  and  decorating,  and  theatrical  staging. 

(/)  We  learn  quickly  that  some  men  have  manual  accuracy  and 
others  manual  inaccuracy.  Where  manual  inaccuracy  is  inherent, 
it  is  well-nigh  impossible  to  correct  it ;  but  where  accuracy  is 
inherent  and  the  man  is  inaccurate  through  habit,  the  defect 
can  be  remedied. 


SELECTING  YOUNG  MEN  FOR  PARTICULAR  JOBS      375 

(m)  Similarly  we  have  the  two  elements  mental  accuracy  and 
mental  inaccuracy.  The  former  has  much  the  same  meaning  as 
the  word  "  logical,"  and  the  latter  as  the  word  "  illogical." 

(«)  Certain  men  are  concentrative  mentally ;  they  bring  all  the 
light  they  possess  to  focus  on  the  subject  under  consideration  ;  they 
are  mentally  centripetal.  On  the  other  hand,  we  find  men  who  are 
mentally  centrifugal  and  who  wander  from  the  subject  under  con- 
sideration or  flit  from  one  subject  to  another  ;  they  are  diffuse. 

(o)  Some  men  go  to  pieces  in  an  emergency ;  whereas  if  they 
were  given  time  to  consider  the  situation  they  would  hold  together 
and  act  wisely.  They  possess  slow  mental  coordination.  The  emer- 
gency man  must  possess  rapid  mental  coordination.  The  latter  is 
necessary  for  success  in  the  baseball  player,  the  locomotive  engi- 
neer, the  motorman,  the  surgeon.  The  former  is  usually  typical 
of  the  philosopher,  the  jurist,  the  research  scientist. 

(/)  One  often  hears  it  said  of  a  man  that  he  has  no  push,  or  that 
he  lacks  determination,  backbone,  grit,  sand ;  other  men  are  said 
to  possess  these  qualities.  The  first  we  call  static,  which  means  to 
cause  to  stand  still,  and  the  second  dynamic,  which  means  to  cause 
to  move.  It  should  be  noted  that  the  noisy  man  is  not  always  a 
dynamic  man  —  on  the  contrary,  he  is  frequently  static ;  while  the 
quiet  man  is  very  frequently  dynamic. 

The  list  then  reads  : 

(a)  Physical  strength  (/)    Deliberate 

Physical  weakness  Impulsive 

(fr)  Mental  (/)  Music  sense 

Manual  (k)   Color  sense 

(c)  Settled  (/)    Manual  accuracy 
Roving  Manual  inaccuracy 

(d)  Indoor  (m)  Mental  accuracy  (logic) 
Outdoor  Mental  inaccuracy 

(i?)   Directive  (#)   Concentration  (mental  focus) 
Dependent  Diffusion 

(f)  Original  (creative)  (o)    Rapid  mental  coordination 
Imitative  Slow  mental  coordination 

(g)  Small  scope  (p)  Dynamic 
Large  scope  Static 

(h)  Adaptable 
Self-centered 


3/6  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

DANGER  IN  HASTY  JUDGMENT 

Experience  has  warned  us  against  the  danger  of  hasty  judgment ; 
for  we  have  found  strong  characteristics  buried  deep  under  the  in- 
fluence of  environment,  inborn  controlling  talents  held  repressed 
or  stunted  by  acquired  habits  of  life,  and  sometimes  the  habit  is 
mistaken  for  the  talent  until  patient  experimenting  or  some  unusual 
occurrence  discovers  the  hidden  ability.  Let  it  be  noted  at  once  that 
while  the  characteristics  are  placed  in  juxtaposition,  it  does  not  follow 
that  one  may  not  be,  for  example,  both  mental  and  manual,  or  both 
an  indoor  and  an  outdoor  man  ;  further,  one  may  not  possess  either 
characteristic  to  any  marked  degree. 

It  should  be  noted  also  that  certain  moral  qualities,  such  as 
bravery  and  honesty,  are  not  given  on  this  list.  While  these  are, 
of  course,  very  important  characteristics,  and  while  certain  jobs 
require  them  to  a  high  degree,  we  have  felt  that  the  ethical 
qualities  are  not  essential  for  the  purposes  for  which  this  list 
was  devised. 

It  is  again  desired  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  this  is  an  empirical 
list,  growing  out  of  the  observations  of  about  five  hundred  young 
men  in  industrial  work  and  university  work  connected  with  the 
engineering  profession.  It  is  probably  too  restricted,  and  may  not 
contain  characteristics  which  are  fundamental.  For  example,  we 
believe  that  there  is  another  element  which  is  not  given  and  which 
is  not  a  result  of  combinations  of  the  elements  given.  The  words 
"  organization  sense  "  have  been  suggested  for  it.  The  idea  to  be 
conveyed  is  something  like  that  of  the  word  "tidy,"  the  natural 
tendency  to  keep  things  in  proper  and  becoming  neatness.  This 
characteristic  is  evidenced  in  the  way  men  keep  their  desks,  the 
way  they  write  their  reports,  and  in  the  general  orderliness  of 
affairs  within  their  jurisdiction. 

Again,  we  find  among  our  students  two  distinct  types,  one  of 
which  does  a  thing  more  for  the  personal  satisfaction  of  doing  it 
than  for  the  immediate  or  prospective  material  gain,  while  the  other 
places  the  material  gain  first.  One  plays  the  game  for  the  game's 
sake ;  the  other  plays  it  as  a  means  to  a  tangible  prize.  I  know 
a  doctor  who  sacrificed  $10,000  a  year  to  be  a  research  scientist; 


SELECTING  YOUNG  MEN  FOR  PARTICULAR  JOBS      377 

he  is  a  vocational  idealist.  I  know  also  a  research  scientist  who 
gave  up  a  brilliant  career  to  acquire  $5000  more  a  year ;  he  is  a 
vocational  materialist. 

The  type  of  craftsman  to  whom  pride  in  his  product  means  more 
than  time  or  money,  and  whose  soul  goes  out  through  his  fingers 
into  the  thing  he  makes,  is  of  the  first  type  ;  the  other  type  makes 
the  thing  to  sell  at  the  largest  profit.  It  is  probable  that  most  men 
have  these  two  characteristics  in  about  equal  measure  ;  that  is  to 
say,  while  they  have  pride  in  their  product,  they  do  not  let  this 
outweigh  the  commercial  necessities.  The  sincere  reformer  is 
a  type  of  the  vocational  idealist ;  the  practical  politician  of  the 
vocational  materialist. 

To  the  idealist  the  doing  of  the  thing  as  well  as  he  can  possibly 
do  it  is  the  end ;  to  the  materialist  the  doing  of  it  in  such  a  way 
as  to  get  the  most  material  return  is  the  end.  In  extreme  cases  the 
vocational  idealist  will  suffer  all  kinds  of  privations,  and  let  his 
family  suffer  too,  rather  than  be  less  thorough  and  better  fed.  On 
the  other  extreme,  the  vocational  materialist  will  drop  any  idea 
which  does  not  pay  and  take  up  any  which  does. 

In  the  fore  part  of  this  paper  three  things  were  mentioned  as 
necessary  results  of  work  :  two  of  them  were  joy  in  the  doing  of  it 
or  mental  satisfaction,  and  a  good  living  or  physical  satisfaction. 
When  mental  satisfaction  dominates  a  man's  work,  he  is  idealistic  ; 
when  physical  satisfaction  predominates,  he  is  materialistic.  These 
should  probably  be  placed  in  the  table  of  major  characteristics. 

The  psychologist  may  object  that  these  characteristics  are  not 
basic,  that  they  are  complex  in  that  they  are  made  up  of  simpler 
elements.  This  is  true,  but  the  same  objection  could  be  urged 
by  the  chemist  against  the  engineer's  use  of  the  words  "  water," 
"air,"  "wrought  iron,"  -"steel,"  "brass,"  "wood,"  "granite,"  and 
"  cement."  And  just  as  the  hydraulic  engineer  uses  "  water,"  so 
does  the  shop  manager  use  mental  accuracy  or  originality ;  neither 
is  concerned  with  the  more  refined  science  of  the  basic  elements 
of  which  the  substance  or  the  characteristic  is  composed. 

Of  course  the  degree  or  strength  of  human  characteristics  can 
never  be  measured  as  can  the  strength  of  material  things.  The 
mind  of  even  the  lowliest  man  is  too  subtle  a  thing  to  be  catalogued. 


378  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Hence  the  limitations  of  vocational  guidance.  I  am  of  the  opinion 
i.  that  for  the  present,  vocational  guidance  can  only  point  out  in 

which  types  of  occupations  an  individual  will  in  all  probability 
' '  not  be  successful. 


CHARACTERISTICS  HAVE  DIFFERENT  MEANINGS 

It  will  be  contended,  too,  that  a  characteristic,  as  for  example 
originality,  has  different  meanings  to  the  artist,  the  shopman,  and 
the  department-store  manager ;  that  it  depends  upon  the  point  of 
view.  So  it  does,  just  as  the  quality  of  wood  means  a  different 
thing  to  the  paper  maker,  the  bridge  builder,  and  the'  furniture 
maker.  But  to  each  in  his  own  field  the  meaning  approaches  a 
fairly  well-defined  standard. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  results  given  here  have  been 
obtained  from  young  men  whose  average  age  is  about  twenty  years. 
How  many  of  these  characteristics  are  determinable  in  children 
from  thirteen  to  sixteen  years  old  I  am  not  prepared  to  say,  since 
I  have  had  no  experience  with  boys  of  this  age. 

While  the  classification  given  has  been  found  empirically,  the 
working  of  the  principle  of  evolution  is  at  once  evident.  Every 
distinct  people  possesses  certain  characteristics,  the  result  of  the 
thousands  and  thousands  of  years  of  conditions  peculiar  to  it.  Thus 
the  Chinese  are  settled,  the  Arabs  are  roving,  the  Sicilians  are 
impulsive,  the  Hindus  are  deliberate,  the  Japanese  are  manually 
accurate,  the  Persians  possess  a  refined  color  sense.  If  a  nation 
has  been  a  roving  nation  for  several  thousand  years  and  then  a 
settled  nation  for  several  thousand  years,  some  of  its  present-day 
representatives  will  be  roving  and  some  settled. 

Any  individual's  characteristics  are  probably  atavistic.  If  all  the 
age-long  impresses  of  the  past  were  equally  transmitted,  all  brothers 
would  be  alike.  When  an  individual  does  not  possess  certain 
characteristics  which  he  might  be  expected  to  possess,  it  is  a 
case  of  arrested  development  of  these  characteristics  in  that  in- 
dividual. They  are  probably  latent  but  inhibited,  and  will  appear 
in  his  descendants. 


EFFECT  OF  NOISE,  FATIGUE,  AND  ENVIRONMENT 
ON  WORKER 

BY  HERMAN  SCHNEIDER,  DEAN  OF  THE  COLLEGE  OF  ENGINEERING, 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CINCINNATI 

It  is  only  within  the  past  two  generations  that  mankind  has 
worked  in  masses  within  walls.  For  centuries  men  did  individual, 
self -directed  work  almost  entirely  in  the  open.  The  change  has 
come,  of  course,  through  the  development  of  power  devices,  and 
dates  from  the  invention  of  the  steam  engine. 

In  the  second  place,  the  industrial  worker  formerly  knew  a  whole 
job  rather  than  a  part  of  it ;  he  performed  a  great  variety  of  func- 
tions in  the  completion  of  his  task  instead  of  endlessly  repeating 
the  same  operation.  The  clockmaker  made  a  whole  clock,  working 
individually,  and  the  necessity  of  working  out  every  part's  relation 
tb  every  other  part  gave  the  worker  a  mental  stimulus  and  there- 
fore a  higher  mental  development.  The  finished  product  was  all 
his  own — the  desire  for  self-expression  which  every  man  has  found 
an  outlet  through  his  work ;  and  once  having  served  a  thorough 
apprenticeship  he  worked  largely  by  self -direction. 

Under  our  present  highly  organized  industrial  conditions  the 
making  of  a  clock  is  subdivided  into  a  large  number  of  operations. 
Each  workman  in  a  clock  factory  makes  piece  after  piece  of  the 
same  kind,  principally  by  feeding  material  into  a  machine,  and  why 
he  does  it  he  need  not  know  and  usually  is  not  told. 

We  are  putting  the  brains  into  the  machine  and  into  the  man- 
agement office,  and  making  the  workman  a  purely  automatic 
adjunct.  It  is  unquestionable  that  much  of  the  present  spirit  of 
industrial  unrest  is  nature's  protest  against  work  without  light, 
physical  and  mental. 

It  is  this  purely  automatic,  high-pressure  work  in  closely  crowded 
rooms  which  is  the  most  ominous  feature  of  modern  industrialism, 

379 


380  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

its  most  serious  aspect  being  the  effect  upon  the  mental  devel- 
opment. Scientific  research  has  shown  us  that  the  monotonous 
rhythmic  repetitions  of  the  machine's  motion  and  the  monotonous 
rhythmic  motion  of  feeding  the  machine  produce  a  hypnotic,  dead- 
ening influence  on  the  mind.  The  lower  brain  centers,  controlling 
habits,  are  developed  at  the  expense  of  the  higher  thinking  centers. 
As  the  habit  becomes  ingrained,  the  worker  becomes  more  lethargic 
and  automatic,  and  almost  as  incapable  of  independent,  intelligent 
action  as  the  machine  itself.  Research  further  shows  that  the  higher 
centers  in  the  brain  of  such  a  worker  are  in  danger  of  getting  into 
a  permanent,  inelastic,  hopeless  set,  if  a  lively  stimulus  is  not 
supplied. 

Further,  there  is  in  every  individual  a  desire  for  self-expression, 
and  if  this  cannot  be  had  in  one's  daily  work  nature  will  force  an 
outlet  for  it.  It  cannot  be  dammed  up  very  long  ;  and  since  there 
is  no  outlet  in  the  worker's  daily  task,  it  must  come  during  his 
idle  hours,  and  sometimes  takes  a  form  which  leads  to  many  of 
our  most  vexing  sociological  problems. 

The  situation,  then,  sifts  down  to  this  :  energizing  work  is  de- 
creasing ;  enervating  work  is  increasing.  The  physical  workers  are 
becoming  more  and  more  automatic,  with  the  sure  result  that  their 
minds  are  becoming  more  and  more  lethargic.  The  work  itself  is 
not  character  building ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  repressive,  and  when 
self-expression  comes  it  is  hardly  energizing  mentally.  The  real 
menace  lies  in  the  fact  that  in  a  self-governing  industrial  com- 
munity the  minds  of  the  majority  are  in  danger  of  becoming  atro- 
phied, or  at  best  of  becoming  trifling  and  superficial,  because  of 
lack  of  continuous  exercise  in  conjunction  with  the  earning  of  a 
livelihood.  The  kind  of  citizenship  that  a  republic  needs  cannot 
be  built  on  sixty  hours  per  week  of  automatic  work.  But  we  can- 
not reverse  our  present  economic  order  of  things.  Automatic  work 
is  increasing  and  will  continue  to  increase  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
The  condition  is  here,  and  philosophical  discussion  will  not  remove  it. 

It  is  evident  then  that  the  law  of  physical  labor  must  be  divided 
into  two  laws ;  namely,  the  law  of  energizing  work,  which  makes  for 
progress,  and  the  law  of  enervating  work,  which  makes  for  retro- 
gression. Nearly  all  the  work  still  done  in  the  open  air,  where  there 


EFFECT  OF  NOISE,  FATIGUE,  AND  ENVIRONMENT     381 

is  a  dependent  sequence  of  operation,  involving  planning  on  the  part 
of  the  worker,  is  energizing  work.  Specific  examples  may  be  cited 
in  farm  work,  railroad  work,  and  the  building  trades.  Certain  work 
done  indoors,  under  good  conditions  of  light  and  air,  is  also  energiz- 
ing ;  for  example,  the  work  of  a  toolmaker,  a  locomotive  assembler, 
and  a  cabinetmaker.  The  enervating  work  has  come  through  the 
subdivision  of  labor  in  factories,  so  that  each  worker  does  one  thing 
over  and  over  in  the  smallest  number  of  cubic  feet  of  space.  This 
type  is  recognizable  at  once  in  the  routine  of  the  garment  worker, 
the  punch-press  operator,  the  paper-box  maker,  the  shoe  worker,  etc. 
For  the  purpose  of  analyzing  work,  a  scale  has  been  devised  in 
which  the  most  energizing  work  is  at  the  100  per-cent  point  and 
the  most  enervating  at  the  zero  point.  The  100  per-cent  work  is 
that  of  the  locomotive  engineer.  This  has  been  selected  because 
his  work  has  the  following  elements  : 

(a)  It  is  done  in  the  open  air. 

(b)  It  provides  a  well-rounded  physical  development. 

(c)  The  constant  improvements  in  locomotive  design  and  in 
railroad  appliances  require  continuous  mental  development. 

(d)  Mental  alertness  is  constantly  required  for  emergencies. 

(e)  A  comprehensive  grasp  of  the  whole  interdependent  scheme 
of  production  (a  railroad  produces  transportation)  is  essential. 

(/)  The  conditions  under  which  the  same  run  is  made  are 
never  alike. 

(g)  The  work  itself  —  not  lectures  or  preachments  or  popular 
acclaim  —  breeds  in  the  engineer  the  highest  quality  of  good  citi- 
zenship ;  namely,  an  instant  willingness  to  sacrifice  himself  for 
the  lives  in  the  train  behind  him. 

The  zero  point  on  the  scale,  or  the  most  enervating  work,  is  the 
work  of  a  girl  in  her  formative  years  in  a  steam  laundry,  when  the 
following  elements  prevail : 

(a)  Supersaturated,  vitiated  air. 

(b}  Standing  in  a  strained  position.  , 

(c)  The  work  consisting  of  feeding  one  piece  after  another  of 
the  same  kind  at  high  speed  into  a  machine. 

(d)  The  hours  of  work  being  so  long  that  fatigue  poisons  accu- 
mulate in  the  blood. 


382  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  scale  is  crude  and  lacks  scientific  accuracy.  A  statement, 
for  example,  that  the  work  of  a  laster  in  a  shoe  factory  is  40  per 
cent  energizing  would  be  a  guess.  But  the  purpose  of  the  scale  is 
not  so  much  to  arrive  at  a  percentage  as  to  establish  some  standard 
of  actual  work  for  the  purpose  of  diagnosis  and  treatment.  Three 
investigators,  analyzing  the  work  of  a  laster,  might  classify  it  as 
30  per  cent,  40  per  cent,  and  50  per  cent  energizing.  The  differ- 
ence in  their  classifications  would  lead  to  a  closer  analysis  and 
hence  to  a  surer  treatment. 

To  take  a  specific  analysis,  consider  two  adjoining  weave  sheds 
of  a  silk  mill.  Going  first  to  mill  A,  you  find  a  long  room  with 
an  aisle  down  the  center,  on  each  side  of  which  are  the  machines. 
Between  the  machines  there  is  ample  space  for  the  operative  (nearly 
always  a  girl)  to  go  up  and  down  tying  the  broken  threads.  In  the 
main  aisle  and  adjacent  to  each  machine  is  a  chair.  When  the  girl 
has  finished  one  round  of  her  machines,  she  rests  for  a  short  period 
of  time,  and  in  this  way  fatigue  is  prevented.  The  two  girls  of  ad- 
joining machines  usually  time  their  rounds  so  that  their  rests  come 
simultaneously.  The  noise  in  the  mill  is  so  slight  that  they  can 
converse  without  any  effort.  The  light  is  good,  the  air  is  not  viti- 
ated, the  rest  periods  are  sufficient,  and  there  is  no  nervous  tension 
from  noise  or  speed.  The  work  is  not  monotonously  automatic,  the 
position  of  the  body  is  not  strained ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  many 
muscles  are  lightly  brought  into  play.  However,  the  work  itself 
does  not  stimulate  any  mental  activity  nor  develop  any  of  the  finer 
and  higher  mental  qualities.  It  can  be  classed  as  about  70  per 
cent  energizing. 

The  silk  after  leaving  this  mill  is  sent  to  mill  B,  where  a  num- 
ber of  strands  are  woven  into  a  single  strong  strand.  Since  the 
silk  is  strengthened,  the  machine  can  be  run  at  a  higher  speed. 
On  entering  mill  B  you  are  confronted  with  a  noise  so  great  that 
talking  is  entirely  out  of  the  question.  The  layout  .at  mill  B  is  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  at  mill  A,  except  that  there  are  no  chairs  in  the 
aisle.  There  are  no  rests  between  the  rounds  which  the  operator 
makes  of  the  machines,  since  the  speed  does  not  permit.  Talking 
is  utterly  impossible  because  of  the  noise.  This  mill  is  at  once 
diagnosed  as  the  sore  spot  of  the  concern.  The  investigator  is 


EFFECT  OF  NOISE,  FATIGUE,  AND  ENVIRONMENT     383 

enabled  to  say  to  the  owner :  "  This  is  your  trouble  center ;  here 
is  where  agitation  begins.  More  operatives  leave  this  mill  per  year 
than  leave  mill  A.  These  workers  are  suspicious  of  each  other's 
actions,  particularly  of  the  foreman's.  They  feel  that  you  are  their 
natural  enemy.  The  foreman  himself  is  a  grouch.  More  jarring 
families,  more  unkempt  back  yards  are  represented  here  than  in 
mill  A,  and  finally  the  actual  efficiency  of  this  mill  is  less  than  in 
mill  A,  and  the  work  more  strenuous."  The  work  is  classified  as 
low  as  10  per  cent,  and  yet  the  only  difference  between  the  two 
mills  is  in  noise,  speed,  and  lack  of  rest.  The  noise  is  a  mechanical 
engineer's  problem,  possible  of  solution.  The  speed  and  the  fatigue 
are  within  the  owner's  control.  With  these  three  factors  eliminated, 
the  work  would  go  up  to  70  per  cent  energizing ;  as  much  work 
would  be  produced  under  the  better  conditions,  since  the  force 
could  be  kept  as  intact  in  mill  B  as  in  mill  A. 

Two  doctors  of  industry  would  treat  mill  B  in  opposite  ways.  In 
order  to  increase  the  production,  one  would  increase  speed,  ignore 
the  noise,  study  the  motions  to  eliminate  waste  moments,  and  by 
the  unanswerable  argument  of  figures  show  you  that  production 
must  go  up.  This  is  the  headache-powder  method  and  leads  to  a 
constantly  broken,  shifting,  dissatisfied  working  force.  The  second 
doctor  would  decrease  the  speed  and  cut  down  the  noise,  insist  on 
carefully  determined  rest  periods,  and  thereby  maintain  a  sound 
organization  of  skilled  workers.  Equally  important,  he  would  raise 
the  general  efficiency,  and  hence  the  economic  efficiency,  of  the 
community.  Nor  would  he  stop  at  that,  for  he  would  further  strive  : 
by  known  methods  to  introduce  additional  conditions,  so  that  the 
work  in  both  mills  would  be  brought  to  about  80  per  cent,  which 
would  probably  be  the  limit  for  this  class  of  work. 

It  should  be  noted  that  where  the  work  is  done  under  conditions 
which  permit  the  operatives  to  talk,  without  interference  to  their 
work,  the  rating  is  much  higher  than  where  such  is  not  the  case. 
When  we  walk  out,  habit  cells  control  the  action,  but  we  can  walk 
and  think  at  the  same  time.  The  same  principle  holds  in  automatic 
occupations.  If  the  motions  are  not  too  rhythmic,  both  of  the  hand 
and  of  the  machine,  and  conversation  is  permitted  and  encouraged, 
the  work  is  not  nearly  so  repressive.  In  a  certain  mill,  employing 


384  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

girls  at  strictly  automatic  work,  the  employees  were  placed  facing 
one  way,  so  that  one  operative  looked  upon  the  back  of  another ; 
between  adjacent  operatives  was  a  small  partition.  This  mill  had 
to  replenish  its  entire  force  each  year,  until  the  scheme  was  changed 
to  a  round-table  plan,  which  encouraged  conversation.  After  this 
the  losses  were  normal. 

An  interesting  case  of  shop  psychology  is  the  following :  In  a 
certain  piano  factory  a  number  of  girls  were  employed  to  assemble 
the  mechanism  which  transmits  the  action  when  the  key  is  struck 
to  the  strings.  Each  girl  attached  a  piece  with  a  limited  number 
of  motions,  and  was  paid  on  the  piecework  plan.  These  employees 
were  the  most  discontented  in  the  firm,  and  were  constantly  shift- 
ing to  other  occupations.  Various  means,  such  as  rest  rooms  and 
decorated  surroundings,  were  tried  without  success.  As  a  last  re- 
sort, the  foreman  got  a  fine  big  Maltese  cat  and  placed  it  in  the 
room  one  morning  before  the  girls  arrived.  This  solved  the  trouble 
completely.  The  cat  compelled  rest  periods,  for  every  now  and 
then  it  would  jump  into  a  girl's  lap  and  take  her  attention  from 
her  work  for  a  few  moments,  and  in  this  way  relieved  the  tension 
of  the  high  speed  and  permitted  the  elimination  of  fatigue  poisons 
at  irregular  but  sufficient  intervals.  Every  girl  planned  at  home  to 
bring  something  in  her  lunch  basket  for  the  cat  to  eat,  whereas 
attempts  to  get  them  interested  in  the  decorating  of  rooms  failed. 
When  girls  left  this  firm  and  went  elsewhere,  where  there  was  no 
cat,  they  quickly  returned.  Production  increased  and  peace  reigned. 
The  commercializing  of  a  woman's  instinct  for  a  cat  probably  en- 
ergized the  work  10  per  cent.  It  was  found  also  that  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  cat  began  to  arouse  an  interest  in  the  other  betterment 
plans,  which  had  originally  failed.  This  particular  case  is  worthy 
of  a  very  careful  psychological  analysis. 

The  details  just  stated  are  cited  not  so  much  to  show  specific 
methods  of  procedure  as  to  emphasize  the  basic  fact  that  we  are, 
individually  and  collectively,  human  units,  towns,  states,  and,  as  a 
nation,  what  our  work  makes  us.  We  have  just  pulled  out  of  a 
thousand-year  swamp  up  to  firmer  ground,  and  whether  we  go 
higher  or  begin  to  slide  back  depends  upon  how  energizing  our 
work  is. 


EFFECT  OF  NOISE,  FATIGUE,  AND  ENVIRONMENT     385 

It  is  fundamental  that  mankind  must  do  stimulating  work  or  re- 
trogress. This  is  the  bedrock  upon  which  our  constructive  programs 
of  education,  industry,  sociology,  of  living,  must  rest.  Fortunately 
we  are  now  far  enough  away  from  the  thousand-year  swamp  so  that 
one  may  safely  propose,  as  a  thesis,  that  only  that  civilization  will 
prevail  whose  laws  and  life  conform  most  nearly  to  natural  law. 
The  spirit  of  unrest,  whether  it  be  evidenced  by  the  spontaneous 
and  seemingly  unaccountable  strike  of  automatic  workers,  the  ques- 
tioning introspection  of  university  faculties;  the  open  defiance  of 
law,  or  the  cry  for  the  doctor  of  industry,  is  the  headache-giving 
warning  of  deeper  seated  organic  trouble. 


THE  PERMANENCE  OF  INTERESTS  AND  THEIR 
RELATION  TO  ABILITIES 

BY  PROFESSOR  EDWARD  L.  THORNDIKE,  TEACHERS  COLLEGE, 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 

(From  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  November,  1912) 

There  is  a  wide  range  of  opinion  amongst  both  theorists  and 
practitioners  with  respect  to  the  importance  of  the  interests  of 
children  and  young  people.  These  early  likes  and  dislikes,  attrac- 
tions and  repulsions,  are  by  some  taken  to  be  prime  symptoms 
of  what  is  for  the  welfare  of  the  individual  or  even  of  the  species. 
By  others  they  are  discarded  as  trivial,  fickle,  products  of  more  or 
less  adventitious  circumstances,  meaning  little  or  nothing  for  the 
nature  or  welfare  of  anyone.  It  seems  therefore  desirable  to  re- 
port whatever  impersonal  estimates  of  the  significance  and  value 
of  interests  one  can  secure. 

I  have  measured  the  significance  of  interests  in  certain  limited 
particulars,  with  very  definite  results,  and  shall  in  this  article 
describe  these  results  and  the  method  by  which  they  were  ob- 
tained and  by  which  anyone  can  readily  verify  them. 

The  particular  problems  attacked  all  concerned  the  relative 
amount  or  relative  intensity  or  relative  strength  of  interests  within 
the  same  individual.  That  is,  "  greater  interest "  will  always  mean 
the  interest  which  was  greater  than  the  others  possessed  by  the 
same  individual ;  "  little  interest"  will  mean  little  in  comparison  with 
the  individual's  other  interests.  The  question  "  To  what  extent 
is  the  strength  of  an  interest  from  ten  to  fourteen  prophetic  of 
the  strength  which  that  interest  will  manifest  in  adult  life  ?  "  will 
mean  "  To  what  extent  will  it,  in  adult  life,  keep  the  same  place 
in  an  order  of  the  individual's  interests  which  it  had  in  the  order 
which  described  his  childish  preferences  ?  "  Amounts  or  degrees 
of  ability  or  capacity  will  similarly  always  mean  relative  amounts. 

386 


THE  PERMANENCE  OF  INTERESTS  387 

Thus,  to  say  that  a  person  was,  during  high  school,  most  inter- 
ested in  mathematics  and  most  able  at  mathematics  will  mean  that 
the  person  liked  mathematics  more  than  he  did  anything  else,  and 
did  better  at  mathematics  than  he  did  at  anything  else.  The  state- 
ment will  not  imply  anything  about  the  degree  of  his  interest  or 
ability  in  comparison  with  other  individuals. 

The  particular  problems  attacked  are  limited  further  to  seven 
varieties  of  interests  and  the  corresponding  varieties  of  ability  or 
capacity :  namely,  mathematics,  history,  literature,  science,  music, 
drawing,  and  other  handwork  (this  last  being  defined  as  "  car- 
pentering, sewing,  gardening,  cooking,  carving,  etc.").  All  com- 
parisons or  relations  of  interests  and  abilities  are  within  this  group, 
so  that,  for  example,  the  statement  that  John  Doe  had  interests  in 
the  high-school  period  distributed  in  the  same  order  of  strength 
as  in  the  elementary-school  period  will  mean  that  these  seven 
interests  had  the  same  order  in  the  two  periods. 

Such  being  the  meanings  of  terms  and  the  limitations  of  the 
field  of  inquiry,  I  have  measured : 

1.  The  permanence  of  interests  from  the  last  three  years  of 
the  elementary-school  period  to  the  junior  year  of  college  or  pro- 
fessional school. 

2.  The  correlation,  or  correspondence,  between  interests  in  a 
given  subject  and  ability  therein  at  the  elementary-school  period. 

3.  The  same  relation  at  the  high-school  period. 

4.  The  same  relation  toward  the  end  of  the  college  or  profes- 
sional course. 

5.  The  same  relation  on  the  whole  (this  will  be  explained  later). 

6.  The  correlation  or  correspondence  between  interest  in  a  given 
subject  at  the  end  of  the  elementary-school  period  (during  its  last 
three  years)  and  ability  in  that  subject  toward  the  end  of  the 
college  or  professional-school  period. 

The  results  to  be  here  reported  are  for  one  hundred  individuals, 
juniors  in  Barnard  College,  Columbia  College,  and  Teachers  Col- 
lege. These  results  are  corroborated  by  a  similar  but  less  minute 
study  of  two  hundred  other  individuals. 

The  original  measures  are  the  judgments  of  the  hundred  indi- 
viduals themselves  concerning  the  order  of  their  interests  in 


388 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


mathematics,  history,  literature,  and  the  rest,  at  each  of  the  three 
periods.  Each  individual  reported  in  writing  in  response  to  the 
following  instructions  : 

EXPERIMENT  34.   (TABLE  i) 

Consider  your  interests  in  the  activities  listed  below  during  the  last  three  years 
of  your  attendance  at  the  elementary  school.  Mark  (under  El.  Interest) 
with  a  I  the  activity  which  at  that  period  was  to  you  the  most  interesting 
of  the  seven  listed.  Mark  the  one  that  was  next  most  interesting,  2 ; 
and  so  on. 

Record  similarly  (under  H.  S.  Interest)  the  order  of  interest  for  you  during 
the  high-school  period.  Record  similarly  (under  C.  Interest)  the  order  of 
interest  for  you  now. 

Pay  no  attention  at  present  to  the  spaces  under  Ability. 

Later  he  reported  similarly  his  judgment  as  to  his  relative 
ability  in  each  of  these  seven  lines  of  activity  in  response  to  the 
following  instructions  : 

TABLE  1 


IN  LAST  THREE  YEARS 

OF 

ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL 

IN  HIGH  SCHOOL 

IN  COLLEGE 

El. 
Interest 

El. 

Ability 

H.  S. 
Interest 

H.  S. 

Ability 

C. 

Interest 

C. 

Ability 

Mathematics  .... 
History  
Literature  
Science  
Music  

Drawing  
Other  handwork1  .  . 

EXPERIMENT  35 

Consider  your  ability  in  each  of  the  activities  listed  in  Table  i,  as  it  existed 
during  the  last  three  years  of  your  attendance  on  the  elementary  school. 
Rank  the  activities  from  i  to  7  according  to  your  ability  in  each,  marking 
that  activity  in  which  you  had  most  ability,  i .  Record  your  ranks  under 
the  column  headed  El.  Ability  in  Table  I.  Record  similarly  (under  H.  S. 
Ability)  the  order  of  ability  for  you  during  the  high-school  period.  Record 
similarly  (under  C.  Ability)  the  order  of  ability  for  you  now. 

1  Other  handwork  means  carpentering,  sewing,  gardening,  cooking,  carving,  etc. 


THE  PERMANENCE  OF  INTERESTS 


389 


TABLE  2 


IN  LAST  THREE  YEARS 

OF 

IN  HIGH  SCHOOL 

IN  COLLEGE 

ELEMENTARY  SCHOOL 

El. 

El. 

H.  S. 

H.  S. 

C. 

C. 

Interest 

Ability 

Interest 

Ability 

Interest 

Ability 

Mathematics  .... 

3 

3 

3 

2 

4 

2 

History      

i 

I 

4 

3 

I 

I 

Literature  

a 

2 

2 

i 

2 

-I 

Science      

I 

Music    

5" 

c 

7 

c 

c 

7 

Drawing     

6 

6 

5 

7 

6 

5 

Other  handwork 

7 

7 

6 

7 

7 

6 

We  have,  then,  for  each  of  the  hundred  a  record  such  as  is  shown 
in  the  case  of  one  of  them  in  Table  2.  These  data  are  obviously 
subject  to  certain  errors  of  memory,  prejudice,  carelessness,  and 
the  like,  which  will  later  be  given  due  attention.  It  will  be  best 
to  consider  first  what  the  meaning  of  the  records  would  be,  were 
each  number  a  perfectly  true  statement  of  the  relative  strength  of 
the  interest  or  ability  in  question. 

Consider,  then,  this  sample  record  as  perfectly  true,  and  compute 
from  it  the  differences  between  each  subject's  position  for  interest 
in  the  last  three  years  of  the  elementary-school  period  (column  i) 
and  for  the  high-school  period  (column  3). 

We  have  : 

Mathematics o 

History 3 

Literature o 

Science : 3 

Music 2 

Drawing i 

Other  handwork _i_ 

Sum  of  the  seven  differences 10 

These  facts  are  repeated  in  the  first  column  of  Table  3. 

Computing  the  other  differences  as  shown  in  the  second  and 
third  column  of  Table  3,  we  have  for  this  individual  the  means  of 
answering  question  i,  concerning  the  permanence  of  interests.  If 


390 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  3 


I 
Difference  between 
El.  interest  rank  and 
H.  S.  interest  rank 

II 

Difference  between 
El.  interest  rank  and 
C.  interest  rank 

III 

Difference  between 
H.  S.  interest  rank 
and  C.  interest  rank 

Mathematics      

o 

I 

I 

History     

"i 

O 

1 

Literature      

O 

o 

o 

Science     

T 

I 

2 

Music  

2 

o 

2 

Drawing    

I 

o 

I 

Other  handwork     .... 

I 

o 

I 

Total      

IO 

1 

IO 

the  individual  had  remained  unchanged  in  his  interests  from  any 
one  period  to  any  other,  the  appropriate  seven  differences  of  Table  3 
would  obviously  have  been  all  zeros,  and  the  sum  of  that  column 
would  have  been  zero.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  had,  from  one  to 
another  period,  changed  as  completely  as  possible,  the  sum  of  the 
appropriate  column  of  Table  3  would  have  been  24  (7-1,  6-2, 
5-3,  4-4,  3-5,  2-6,  1-7,  giving  24).  If  the  individual's  interests 
had  been  due  to  mere  caprice,  changing  their  relative  strength  at 
random,  the  sum  of  any  column  of  Table  3  would  approximate  16. 
For  if  a  i  is  equally  likely  to  become  a  I,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  or  7,  and 
so  also  of  a  2, -a  3,  a  4,  etc.,  the  average  result  will  be  I6.1 

Any  quantity  below  1 6  as  the  sum  of  a  column,  then,  means  some 
permanence  of  interests  in  the  individual  in  question,  and  the  de- 
gree of  permanence  is  measured  by  the  divergence  from  1 6  toward  o. 

For  the  permanence  from  the  elementary-school  period  to  the 
junior  year  of  college  or  professional  school  in  my  hundred  indi- 
viduals this  figure  is,  on  the  average,  9,  three  fifths  of  the  individ- 
uals showing  sums  of  from  6  to  12  for  column  2  of  Table  3.  This 
average  result  of  9  may  be  expressed  as  a  coefficient  of  correlation, 

1  i  becoming  i,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7  gives  as  differences  o,  i,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6 ; 

2  becoming  i,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7  gives  as  differences  i,  o,  i,  2,  3,  4,  5  ; 

3  becoming  i,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7  gives  as  differences  2,  i,  o,  i,  2,  3,  4. 

Continuing  and  dividing  the  sum  of  the  49  differences  by  49,  we  get,2?  for  the  average  dif- 
ference by  mere  chance  shifting,  and  7  X  2$,  or  16,  as  the  average  sum  of  a  column  in  Table  3 
by  mere  chance  shifting. 


THE  PERMANENCE  OF  INTERESTS  391 

or  correspondence,  such  as  is  in  customary  use  to  measure  resem- 
blances of  various  sorts.  It  is  equivalent  to  a  correlation  of  over 
.60.  This  means  that  a  person's  interests  in  the  late  elementary- 
school  period  resemble,  in  their  order  and  relative  strength,  the 
constitution  of  interests  which  he  will  have  eight  years  later  to  the 
extent  of  six  tenths  of  perfect  resemblance.  For  the  coefficient  of 
correlation  is  a  magnitude  running  from  —  i.o  (which  would  be 
the  coefficient  if  the  sum  of  differences  was  "24)  through  o  (which 
would  correspond  to  a  sum  of  differences  of  16)  to  -f-  i.o  (which 
would  correspond  to  a  sum  of  differences  of  o).  A  sum  of  dif- 
ferences of  8  means  a  resemblance  greater  than  half  of  perfect 
resemblance,  as  the  reader  expert  in  the  mathematics  of  prob- 
ability will  realize.  The  sums  12,  10,  8,  and  6,  in  fact,  mean 
coefficients  of  resemblance  or  correlation  of  -+-  .38,  +  .55,  +  .71, 
and  +  .83  respectively. 

The  effect  which  the  errors  to  which  the  original  reports  are 
subject  would  have  in  making  this  obtained  degree  of  permanence 
too  high  or  too  low  may  now  be  considered.  The  chance  errors — 
the  mere  failures  of  memory  or  carelessness  in  report  or  inability 
to  distinguish  slight  differences  in  the  interest  of  nearly  equally 
interesting  subjects  —  would  make  the  obtained  estimate  too  low. 
Their  action  would  be  to  change  the  true  sum  of  differences,  what- 
ever it  was,  toward  16,  or  the  true  coefficient  of  correlation  toward 
zero.  The  effect  of  errors  of  prejudice,  on  the  other  hand,  might 
have  been  toward  so  distorting  memory  and  observation  as  to  make 
the  order  given  for  interests  in  the  two  later  periods  more  like  the 
order  given  for  the  elementary-school  period  than  was  in  truth  the 
case.  This  would,  of  course,  unduly  raise  the  obtained  estimate  of 
permanence,  that  is,  lower  the  sum  of  the  differences.  I  do  not 
believe  that  such  tendencies  to  read  present  interests  into  the  past, 
and  to  leave  the  order  reported  for  one  period  unchanged  so  far 
as  possible,  are  very  strong,  there  being  a  contrary  tendency  to 
remember  and  look  for  differences.  On  the  whole,  I  should  expect 
the  effect  of  the  large  chance  errors  in  lowering  the  estimate  of 
permanence  to  nearly  or  quite  counteract  whatever  balance  of 
prejudice  there  may  be  in  favor  of  similarity  of  interests  or  pro- 
jection of  present  conditions  into  the  past. 


392 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


A  correlation  of  .6  or  .7  seems,  then,  to  be  approximately  the 
true  degree  of  resemblance  between  the  relative  degree  of  an  in- 
terest in  a  child  of  from  ten  to  fourteen  and  in  the  same  person 
at  twenty-one. 

Consider  now  the  difference  between  a  subject's  rank  for  interest 
and  its  rank  for  ability  at  the  same  period.  Using  the  same  sample 
record  (Table  2),  and  assuming  it  to  be  a  true  record  of  the  order 
of  interests,  and  computing  from  it  the  difference  between  each  sub- 
ject's position  for  interest  in  the  elementary-school  period  (column  i) 
and  its  position  for  ability  in  the  same  period  (column  2),  we  have : 

Mathematics o 

History o 

Literature o 

Science o 

Music o 

Drawing o 

Other  handwork o 

These  facts  are  repeated  in  the  first  column  of  Table  4.  Similar 
facts  for  this  same  individual,  for  the  differences  between  the  order 
for  interest  and  the  order  for  ability  in  the  high-school  period  and 
in  the  college  period,  are  given  in  the  second  and  third  columns 
of  Table  4. 

TABLE  4 


I 

II 

III 

Differences  between 

Differences  between 

Differences  between 

El.  interest  and  El. 

H.   S.   interest  and 

C.  interest  and  C. 

ability 

H.  S.  ability 

ability 

Mathematics       

O 

I 

,, 

History     

O 

I 

O 

Literature      

O 

I 

I 

Science     

o 

•i 

I 

Music  

O 

2 

2 

Drawing    

O 

2 

I 

Other  handwork     .... 

o 

O 

I 

If  at  any  period  an  individual  has  greatest  ability  in  the  subject 
which  is  most  interesting  to  him,  next  greatest  ability  in  the  next 
most  interesting  subject,  and  so  on,  the  sum  of  the  seven 


THE  PERMANENCE  OF  INTERESTS  393 

differences  for  that  period  will  be  zero.  If  the  order  of  ability  was 
as  unlike  as  possible  to  the  order  of  interest,  this  sum  would  be  24  ; 
and  if  the  relation  between  interest  and  ability  was  that  of  mere 
chance,  this  sum  would  be  16.  Any  quantity  below  16  as  the  sum 
of  a  column  in  Table  4,  then,  means  some  positive  relation  or 
resemblance  between  the  individual's  degrees  of  interest  and  his 
degrees  of  ability. 

For  the  hundred  individuals  studied  this  figure  is  on  the  average 
approximately  5,  being  practically  the  same  for  the  elementary- 
school  period,  for  the  high-school  period,  and  for  the  college 
period.  This  average  result  may  be  expressed  as  a  coefficient  of 
correlation  of  .88.  Nearly  three  fourths  of  the  individuals  show 
records  between  2  and  8  inclusive  —  that  is,  correlations  of  from 
.70  to  .98. 

If,  in  the  case  of  any  individual,  we  add  together  the  three 
ranks  for  each  subject  in  interest  at  the  three  periods  and  do  like- 
wise for  its  ability  ranks,  we  have  measures  of  the  general  order 
of  the  seven  subjects  for  interest  and  for  ability  over  the  whole 
period  from,  say,  the  age  of  eleven  to  the  age  of  twenty-one. 
Thus,  in  the  sample  chosen,  the  combined  ranks  give : 

SUM  OF  RANKS  FOR  SUM  OF  RANKS  FOR 

INTEREST,  ALL  THREE  ABILITY,  ALL  THREE 

PERIODS  PERIODS 

Mathematics 10  .7 

History 6  5 

Literature 6  6 

Science 8  12 

Music 17  17 

Drawing 17  18 

Other  handwork 20  19 

Turning  these  into  positions  from  I  to  /,  we  have  : 

GENERAL  RANK  GENERAL  RANK 

FOR  INTEREST  FOR  ABILITY 

Mathematics 4  3 

History i\  i 

Literature   . .  i£  2 

Science       3  4 

Music 5s  5 

Drawing 52  6 

Other  handwork 7  7 


394  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  differences  in  the  order  are,  then,  i,  \,  \,  i,  \,  \,  and  o, 
their  sum  being  4. 

I  have  made  the  calculation  for  each  of  the  hundred  individuals. 
On  the  average  this  sum  of  differences  is  approximately  4^  and 
corresponds  to  a  coefficient  of  correlation  of  .91.  The  individual 
whose  interests  follow  his  capacities  least  closely  still  shows  a  sub- 
stantial resemblance  (nearly  .5).  The  correlation  between  an  indi- 
vidual's order  of  subjects  for  interest  and  his  order  for  ability  is 
in  fact  one  of  the  closest  of  any  that  are  known.  A  person's  rela- 
tive interests  are  an  extraordinarily  accurate  symptom  of  his 
relative  capacities. 

The  effect  of  the  errors  to  which  the  original  reports  are  sub- 
ject is  on  the  whole  probably  to  make  this  obtained  degree  of 
resemblance  between  interest  and  capacity  too  lozv.  Errors  due  to 
accident,  carelessness,  and  inability  to  distinguish  or  to  remember 
slight  differences  in  interest  or  in  capacity  would  make  the  sums 
of  difference  in  the  long  run  greater  —  and  the  degree  of  resem- 
blance obtained,  less  —  than  the  true  facts  would  have  given.  The 
only  sort  of  error  that  could  make  the  obtained  resemblance  greater 
than  the  true  fact  would  be  an  error  whereby  either  order  was 
falsified  to  make  it  more  like  the  other  —  notably  the  possible 
tendency  to  rate  one's  self  higher  than  one  should  for  ability  in  a 
subject  which  one  likes.  On  the  whole  the  resemblance  between 
interest  and  ability  may  safely  be  placed  at  about  .9  of  perfect 
resemblance. 

I  have  computed  the  resemblance  between  interest  in  the  last 
three  years  of  the  elementary  school  and  capacity  in  the  college 
period  as  a  partial  measure  of  the  extent  to  which  early  interest 
could  be  used  as  a  symptom  of  adult  capacity.  The  average  for 
the  hundred  individuals  is  a  coefficient  of  correlation,  or  resem- 
blance, of  .60. 

I  have  also,  for  comparison  with  the  last  measurement  and  with 
the  measurement  of  the  resemblance  of  interest  in  the  late  elemen- 
tary period  to  interest  in  the  college  period,  computed  the  coefficient 
of  correlation,  or  resemblance,  between  the  order  of  the  seven  sub- 
jects for  ability  in  the  elementary  and  their  order  for  ability  in 
the  college  period,  using  the  records  from  these  same  hundred 


THE  PERMANENCE  OF  INTERESTS  395 

individuals.  The  average  resemblance  obtained  is  six  and  a  half 
tenths,  or  slightly  closer  than  that  for  early  and  late  interest. 

These  facts  unanimously  witness  to  the  importance  of  early 
interests.  They  are  shown  to  be  far  from  fickle  and  evanescent. 
On  the  contrary,  the  order  of  interests  at  twenty  shows  six  tenths 
of  perfect  resemblance  to  the  order  from  eleven  to  fourteen,  and 
has  changed  therefrom  little  more  than  the  order  of  abilities  has 
changed.  It  would  indeed  be  hard  to  find  any  feature  of  a  human 
being  which  was  a  much  more  permanent  fact  of  his  nature  than  his 
relative  degrees  of  interest  in  different  lines  of  thought  and  action. 

Interests  are  also  shown  to  be  symptomatic,  to  a  very  great 
extent,  of  present  and  future  capacity  or  ability.  Either  because 
one  likes  what  he  can  do  well,  or  because  one  gives  zeal  and  effort 
to  what  he  likes,  or  because  interest  and  ability  are  both  symptoms 
of  some  fundamental  feature  of  the  individual's  original  nature, 
or  because  of  the  combined  action  of  all  three  of  these  factors, 
interest  and  ability  are  bound  very  closely  together.  The  bond  is 
so  close  that  either  may  be  used  as  a  symptom  for  the  other  almost 
as  well  as  for  itself. 

The  importance  of  these  facts  for  the  whole  field  of  practice 
with  respect  to  early  diagnosis,  vocational  guidance,  the  work  of 
social  secretaries,  deans,  advisers,  and  others  who  direct  students' 
choices  of  schools,  studies,  and  careers,  is  obvious.  They  should 
be  taken  account  of  in  such  practice  until  they  are  verified  or 
modified  by  data  obtained  by  a  better  method,  and  such  data 
should  be  soon  collected.  The  better  method  is,  of  course,  to 
get  the  measurements  of  relative  interest  and  of  relative  ability 
not  from  memory  but  at  the  time,  and  not  from  individuals'  re- 
ports alone  but  by  objective  tests.  Such  an  investigation  requires 
a  repeated  survey  of  each  individual  at  three  or  more  periods, 
say  in  1912,  1915,  and  1920,  and  demands  skill  and  pertinacity 
in  keeping  track  of  the  hundred  or  more  children  and  arranging 
for  the  second  and  third  series  of  reports  and  tests.  I  hope  that 
some  one  of  my  readers  will  be  moved  to  undertake  it. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY  FOR 
CHILDREN  OF  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT 

BY  ERNEST  L.  TALBERT 

(From  the  Report  of  an  Investigation  carried  on  under  the  Direction  of  the 
Board  of  The  University  of  Chicago  Settlement) 

INTRODUCTION:  THE  PROBLEM,  THE  METHOD,  AND 
THE  NEIGHBORHOOD 

THE  PROBLEM 

What  are  the  industrial  opportunities  for  children,  especially 
those  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  years  of  age,  in  the  stock- 
yards district  ?  What  are  the  jobs  they  secure,  their  wages,  and 
the  chances  for  advancement  ?  Does  the  public  school  adjust  them 
to  the  economic  environment  ?  What  is  the  attitude  of  parent  and 
child  to  the  school  and  to  the  job  ?  What  is  the  relation  of  the 
income  of  the  family  to  the  early  leaving  of  school  ?  What  is 
done  to  bridge  the  gap  between  school  and  work,  and  to  guide 
the  youth  to  the  vocation  suited  to  his  capacity  and  to  future 
usefulness  ?  What  may  be  done  ? 

These  are  the  main  topics  of  inquiry  in  this  study.  They  relate 
principally  to  the  immediate  situation  in  the  school,  the  family, 
and  juvenile  work,  but  in  their  implications  they  are  a  part  of  the 
wider  problem  of  the  moral  and  civic  welfare  of  the  children  and 
of  the  community.  They  touch  the  effect  of  the  work  which  father 
and  child  pursue  upon  social  attitude,  the  consequences  of  irregular 
employment  and  "  blind-alley  "  jobs.  They  revive  the  problem  of 
the  function  of  the  public  school  in  an  industrial  democracy. 

THE  METHOD 

It  may  be  claimed  that  the  present  study  has  the  advantage  of 
being  focused  on  a  limited  area  and  of  proceeding  from  a  social 
settlement.  To  know  the  neighborhood,  to  have  children  and 

396 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY      397 

parents  come  to  the  residents  looking  for  a  job,  and  to  be  in  touch 
with  principals  and  teachers  of  the  local  public  schools  is  to  secure 
points  of  contact  and  a  cooperation  generally  denied  to  the  census 
taker,  and  the  material  secured  is  likely  to  be  more  accurate,  even 
if  more  restricted  in  scope.  Finding  a  position  is  to  the  boy  and 
girl  a  specific  need,  which  takes  away  the  natural  resentment  when 
questions  are  asked.  The  union  of  vocational  help  and  keeping  of 
schedules,  therefore,  is  a  way  of  approach  different  from  that  of 
Miss  Susan  Kingsbury  in  her  investigation  for  the  Massachusetts 
Commission  on  Industrial  and  Technical  Education,  and  of  Miss 
Rachel  Edwards  for  the  St.  Louis  School  of  Social  Economy. 
Miss  Kingsbury  and  her  assistants  secured  their  valuable  data  from 
representative  sections  of  Massachusetts  by  the  usual  method  of 
house-to-house  canvass  and  interviews  with  employers  and  school 
officials.  Miss  Edwards,  in  like  manner,  studied  the  city  of  St. 
Louis.  Their  reports  are  comprehensive,  taking  in  the  whole  situa- 
tion, but  suffer  from  the  extension  of  the  field  and  the  necessarily 
short  and  slight  acquaintance  with  the  persons  consulted.  An  im- 
migrant community,  largely  depending  on  the  packing  houses  for 
employment,  in  which  the  University  Settlement  has  for  years 
been  a  recognized  center,  presents  another  problem. 

The  Settlement,  of  course,  has  long  been  a  means  of  securing 
employment,  so  that  a  kind  of  historical  connection  was  already 
established.  The  extension  of  this  endeavor  during  the  nine  months 
spent  in  this  investigation  took  the  following  directions : 

1.  Cooperation  with  employers,  visits  to  firms  which  employ 
boys  and  girls,  and  arrangements  by  which  the  employers  agreed 
to  notify  us  of  vacancies. 

2.  Personal  letters  asking  for  a  conference  sent  to  boys  who 
have  left  school  to  go  to  work. 

3.  Observation  of  the  tastes  and  abilities  of  the  children  look- 
ing for  work,  advice  as  to  the  most  desirable  occupation,  securing 
of  the  best  place  available,  and  following  up  the  worker  so  that 
connection  with  his  work  might  not  be  needlessly  broken. 

4.  Preparation  of  schedules,  part  to  be  filled  out  by  the  appli- 
cant. The  schedules  included  these  points  :  date  of  leaving  school ; 
age  ;  grade  ;  reasons  for  going  to  work  given  by  parent  and  child  ; 


398  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

attitude  toward  school  and  future  occupation  ;  industrial  biography 
—  wages  and  treatment  by  employers  ;  income  of  the  family ;  at- 
tendance at  night  school ;  and  other  evidence  of  definite  interests. 

RACIAL  ELEMENTS 

The  people  living  in  the  vicinity  of  the  University  Settlement 
are  largely  immigrants,  comparatively  recent,  from  Russia  and 
southeastern  Europe.  The  region  south  of  Forty-seventh  Street 
is  considered  a  desirable  residence  district,  and  the  Bohemians, 
Lithuanians,  and  Poles  who  are  prospering  tend  to  leave  the  more 
crowded  tenements  to  the  north  for  the  use  of  the  recent  arrivals. 
There  is  a  sprinkling  of  Irish  and  German,  although  the  succes- 
sive waves  of  immigration  —  Polish,  Bohemian,  Lithuanian,  and 
Slovak  —  have  scattered  the  older  settlers.  A  count  of  904  boys 
and  girls  from  the  local  public  schools  who  received  their  "working 
papers  "  during  the  period  between  June,  1908,  and  June,  1911, 
shows  the  following  percentages,  taking  the  nationality  of  the  father 
as  a  criterion  : 

PERCENTAGE 

Bohemian 31 

Polish 28 

Lithuanian n 

German '. 10 

Irish 8 

American 8 

Miscellaneous 4 

The  same  count  suggests  the  grouping  of  races  about  the  local 
public  schools.  From  the  standpoint  of  number  the  Seward  School 
has  a  majority  of  Polish,  then  in  order  Bohemian,  Lithuanian,  Ger- 
man, Irish,  Slovak,  and  American.  The  Hamline  School  shows  a 
majority  of  Bohemian,  then  in  order  Polish,  Irish,  German,  and 
Lithuanian  ;  the  Hedges  School  is  dominantly  Bohemian,  while 
the  Seward  branch,  closest  to  the  stockyards,  contains  a  large 
preponderance  of  Polish  children. 

The  ratio,  of  course,  does  not  represent  the  exact  distribution  of 
races  in  the  district,  but  it  does  indicate  the  large  majority  of  the 
foreign  children  over  the  "Americanized."  Consequently,  assimi- 
lation is  imperfect ;  Old- World  customs  are  not  yet  adjusted  to  our 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY      399 

traditions.  As  will  be  seen  later,  the  child  is  often  in  subjection 
to  the  patriarchal  authority  of  a  parent  ignorant  of  the  economic 
as  well  as  of  other  resources  of  America.  There  is  an  advantage 
in  dealing  with  some  unusual  conditions  found  in  a  foreign  indus- 
trial community,  for  the  low  family  standards  and  the  fewness  of 
opportunities  put  the  school  to  its  severest  test  and  allow  us  to 
see  the  elements  of  the  problem  with  greater  clearness.  However, 
to  anticipate  again,  the  general  situation  regarding  the  work  of 
children  is  not  materially  different  from  that  proved  true  of  places 
as  remote  as  England.  The  problem  is  not  that  of  race.1  At  first 
it  was  thought  that  a  marked  difference  in  the  fortunes  of  children 
after  leaving  school  would  be  found  to  follow  racial  lines,  but  ex- 
cept for  a  slight  preference  of  Bohemian  and  German  parents  to. 
have  their  children  follow  trades,  the  situation  is  the  same  for  all, 
as  far  as  nationality  is  concerned.  , 

SECTION  I.    THE  SITUATION  IN  THE  SCHOOL 

A  large  number  of  the  children  in  our  district  attend,  at  some 
time,  the  parochial  school.  Often  they  leave,  after  confirmation, 
to  continue  in  the  public  school  until  they  are  fourteen  years  old. 
The,  teachers  in  the  public  schools  are  confronted  with  the  diffi- 
culty of  harmonizing  two  courses  of  study  having  diverse  aims 
and  methods.  It  is  difficult  to  adjust  the  ecclesiastical  ideal  of  the 
Catholic  school  to  the  undenominational  and  civic  purpose  of  the 
municipal  schools,  and  a  part  of  the  dissatisfaction  and  dropping 
out  of  school  comes  during  the  critical  period  when  the  parish- 
school  child  tries  to  accommodate  himself  to  the  public  school. 

There  is  excellent  teaching  in  the  schools  of  the  stockyards  dis- 
trict, and  there  are  capable,  enthusiastic  principals ;  there  is  also 
some  ineffective  teaching  and  failure  to  keep  in  contact  with  the 
pupil's  interests  as  he  approaches  adolescence.  Judged  from  the 
confessions  of  many  administrators  in  the  reports  of  the  National 

1  Mr.  Ayres  reaches  the  conclusion  that  in  America  the  schools  reach  the  child  of  the 
foreigner  more  generally  than  they  do  the  child  of  the  native-born  American.  Cf.  his  table 
showing  percentages  of  children  of  native  parentage  as  compared  with  children  of  foreign 
parentage  in  school  'at  the  ages  five  to  fourteen.  In  the  United  States  more  white  children 
of  native  parents  are  illiterate  than  is  the  case  with  white  children  of  foreign  parentage 
("Laggards  in  our  Schools,"  pp.  16,  105,  115). 


400  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Education  Association,  this  defect  is  not  confined  to  one  locality. 
In  general  the  primary  grades,  influenced  by  the  constructive  play 
activities  of  the  kindergarten,  are  more  successful  than  the  upper 
grades.  Principals  and  teachers  recognize  this  fact  clearly,  but  the 
lack  of  home  stimulus,  the  faulty  knowledge  of  our  language  and 
institutions,  and  the  precarious  family  incomes  all  conspire  to  de- 
feat the  most  heroic  attempts  to  "  hold  "  the  pupils  after  the  fifth 
grade.  The  excellent  Chicago  Course  of  Study,  introduced  by 
Superintendent  Young,  because  of  its  attention  to  the  economic, 
civic,  and  historical  background  of  the  city  and  the  state,  will  do 
much  to  give  breadth  of  outlook  to  the  growing  youth,  if  well  taught 
by  teachers  possessing  a  social  and  evolutionary  perspective ;  and 
the  success  of  the  cooking,  sewing,  and  manual-training  instruction 
now  offered  points  to  the  need  of  extending  such  opportunities.1 
Meanwhile,  the  struggle  of  those  in  authority  to  "  raise  the  stand- 
ard of  scholarship  "  so  as  to  make  it  harder  for  the  children  to 
secure  work  certificates  by  adding  to  the  reading  and  writing  quali- 
fications now  existent  is  pathetic  and  useless  without  the  introduc- 
tion of  direct  occupational  interest  from  the  beginning.2  As  it  now 
is,  the  "  subnormal  room  "  is  the  best  place  for  boys  and  girls  of 
active,  nonbookish  dispositions  to  find  free  outlet  to  the  demand 
for  spontaneous  expression.  The  principal  of  the  Hamline  School 
tells  the  story  of  a  subnormal-room  girl  who,  in  the  absence  of 
the  regular  teacher  during  the  passing  but  of  the  children,  rose  to 

1  Since  this  was  written,  more  manual  and  occupational  instruction  has  been  provided  in 
the  upper  grades  of  the  elementary  school.   This  is  commendable.   Still,  the  new  courses 
appear  to  have  the  character  of  the  ordinary  manual  training.   What  is  more  desirable  is 
separate  vocational  courses.   There  should  be  teachers  conversant  with  shop  methods  and 
discipline.   Vocational-training  methods  ought  to  be  given  a  fair  trial.   To  add  to  an  already 
full  curriculum  a  number  of  occupational  subjects  taught  according  to  the  formal  pedagogical 
methods  is  clearly  an  unsatisfactory  compromise. 

2  The  Illinois  law  provides  that  a  work  certificate  may  be  granted  to  the  child  by  the 
school  authorities  when  he  reaches  the  age  of  fourteen,  that  until  he  is  sixteen  the  child 
shall  be  either  in  school  or  at  work,  that  the  period  of  daily  work  shall  be  limited  to  eight 
hours,  and  that  dangerous  employments  shall  not  be  entered. 

The  glaring  defect  of  the  laws  regulating  juvenile  labor  is  that  no  efficient  machinery  is 
provided  by  which  the  child  may  be  kept  track  of  until  he  is  sixteen.  He  may  elude  the 
truant  officers  entirely.  If  he  leaves  a  job  he  retains  his  working  papers.  The  compulsory- 
education  department  does  not  have  a  record  of  his  whereabouts.  Thousands  of  boys  and 
girls  are  thrown  out  upon  the  streets  each  year.  There  is  no  educational  oversight.  The 
result  is  demoralizing  idleness  or  entrance  into  an  economic  atmosphere  peculiarly  unsuited 
to  the  first  requirement  of  adolescence  —  free  expression  under  sympathetic  supervision. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     401 

the  occasion  and  directed  the  marching  with  skill.  Such  executive 
capacity  is  likely  to  be  wasted  in  the  case  of  many  when  a  school 
system  puts  a  premium  upon  passive  receptivity  and  "  recitation." 
It  is  small  wonder  that  boys  grow  restless  and  girls  impatient  to 
escape  a  regime  in  which  they  can  see  little  present  meaning. 

To  add  to  the  growing  proof  of  the  elimination  from  school  as 
the  child  grows  older,  we  have  the  figures  prepared  from  the  record 
of  attendance  in  the  Seward  School,  June  23,  1911  : 

ATTENDANCE 
GRADE  No.  OF  PUPILS 

Kindergarten 94 

First 336 

Second 173 

Third in 

Fourth 136 

Fifth 125 

Sixth 61 

Seventh 39 

Eighth 41 

It  is  clear  that  after  the  fifth  grade  there  is  a  marked  decrease. 
The  total  number  of  pupils  up  to  the  fifth  grade,  not  including 
those  in  the  kindergarten,  is  756  ;  compared  with  the  primary 
grades,  the  grammar  grades  —  from  the  fifth  through  the  eighth 
—  contain  only  266  pupils.  That  is,  in  the  upper  grades,  where 
most  of  the  liberalizing  forces  which  exist  in  the  school  are  brought 
to  bear  on  the  child,  there  are  only  about  one  third  as  many 
students  to  work  with,  a  loss  in  numbers  of  490  pupils. 

It  is  furthermore  true  that  the  high  school  has  comparatively 
little  influence  on  the  life  of  our  neighborhood.  Yet  teacher  and 
principal  are  practically  forced  to  urge  the  child  to  take  more  ad- 
vantage of  the  regular  free-school  facilities,  because  of  their  loyalty 
to  the  school  system.1  There  are  few  alternatives  to  bring  before 

1  In  this  connection  a  statement  made  by  the  eighth-grade  teacher  of  the  Seward  School, 
as  to  the  future  plans  of  the  graduates,  is  relevant.  She  said  that  eight  girls  and  five  boys 
announced  their  intention  to  enter  high  school,  two  boys  and  one  girl  were  looking  for 
work,  one  boy  and  one  girl  were  to  attend  business  college,  one  girl  was  needed  at  home  to 
do  the  housework,  one  girl  was  planning  to  go  to  the  new  Technical  High  School,  and  three 
were  uncertain.  The  information  at  least  shows  a  drift  of  opinion.  The  number  who  actu- 
ally reach  high  school  will  probably  be  smaller  than  that  given,  and  the  evident  desire  of 
the  teacher  that  they  should  go  very  likely  provoked  some  of  her  pupils  to  promise. 


4O2 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


the  child,  and  if  there  is  no  handwork  nor  machine-shop  course  in 
the  elementary  curriculum  it  is  difficult  for  the  boy  to  realize  the 
far-away  possibilities  of  the  technical  high  school.  As  it  is,  the 
enthusiasm  for  technical  training  of  the  principal  and  manual- 
training  teacher  of  the  Seward  School  influences  a  considerable 
number  of  the  graduates  to  attend  Lake  High  School,  but  the 
number  is  small  in  comparison  with  the  many  who  require  such 
training  and  skill.  The  solicitor  for  the  "business  college"  rises 
to  the  emergency,  and  vividly  pictures  the  prosperity  following  a 
thorough  three  months'  course  in  his  institution. 

The  principal  of  the  Lake  High  School  corroborates  the  state- 
ment that  few  boys  and  girls  of  the  district  either  start  or  continue 
in  high  school.  The  instruction  offered  in  the  technical  high 
schools  is  closed  to  a  large  number  of  students  who  drop  out  of 
school  before  the  eighth  grade.  These  children  are  not  given  the 
kind  of  instruction  answering  to  their  varying  needs.  The  failure 
of  the  high  school  to  reach  the  handworking  groups  is  strikingly 
exhibited  in  the  stockyards  district.1 

GRADES  AND  AGES  OF  CHILDREN  LEAVING  SCHOOL 


GRADE  REACHED 

NUMBER  OF  PUPILS 

PERCENTAGE 
(Boys  AND  GIRLS) 

I    

I 

A 

-j   . 

IO 

•t 

A 

C.2 

1  1 

t      . 

7Q 

16 

6        

I2Q 

26 

7    . 

111 

27 

8            

8q 

17 

Total  

4Q7 

IOO 

The  material  for  this  table  comes  from  the  work  certificates  of 
497  cases  issued  between  January  i,  1909,  and  June  I,  1911,  by 
the  principals  of  the  local  schools. 

1  The  seven  instances  of  high-school  attendance  found  are  representative  of  the  degree 
to  which  the  high  school  attracts  and  selects.  Of  the  three  boys,  A  was  taking  the  two  years' 
commercial  course,  and  selling  papers  to  piece  out  the  family  income.  B,  a  Polish  boy,  after 
trying  errand-boy  jobs  for  two  months,  was  planning  to  go,  although  the  father's  weekly  pay 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY      403 


Slightly  over  one  half  of  the  total  left  school  in  the  sixth  and 
seventh  grades,  and  in  most  cases  their  systematic  "  education  " 
was  finished.  It  cannot  be  repeated  too  often  that  this  exodus 
takes  place  in  the  wide-awake,  imaginative  period  of  youth.  Nearly 
one  third  of  the  number  left  school  before  reaching  the  sixth  grade. 
Of  the  1 7  per  cent  in  the  eighth  grade,  many  were  not  graduated. 
A  few  left  in  order  to  attend  business  college. 

The  figures  for  the  286  boys  and  the  211  girls  may  be  given 
separately  : 


BOYS 

GIRLS 

Grade 

Number 

Percentage 

Grade 

Number 

Percentage 

I     

O 
4 
7 
36 
52 

66 

74 
47 

13 

18 
23 
25 
16 

I      

I 
o 

3 
16 
27 
63 
59 
42 

7 
13 
30 
29 

19 

*> 

2       

-3 

A 

c    . 

C 

6   

6     ..... 

7 

7 

8    

8     

Before  the  seventh  grade  was  reached  59  per  cent  of  the  boys 
had  stopped  school  and  52  per  cent  of  the  girls.  The  number  of 
older  boys  who  come  to  this  country  and  attend  school  for  a  brief 
period  in  order  to  fulfill  the  educational  requirement,  explains  in 
part  the  higher  proportion  of  boys.  During  the  sixth  and  seventh 
grades  59  per  cent  of  the  girls  received  their  work  certificates,  as 
compared  with  48  per  cent  of  the  boys.  A  serious  situation  is  seen 
in  the  branch  Seward  School,  where  in  the  last  two  years  35  per 
cent  of  the  boys  stopped  in  the  fifth  grade,  while  the  corresponding 
highest  percentage  of  the  girls  was  3 1  per  cent  for  the  sixth  grade. 

was  only  six  to  eight  dollars.  C  was  the  son  of  a  prospering  Jewish  merchant,  was  a  student 
by  inclination,  and  bound  for  the  University  and  one  of  the  learned  professions,  according 
to  his  mother. 

One  of  the  girls  went  to  high  school  for  a  month,  then  poverty  caused  by  a  strike,  in 
which  the  father  took  part,  forced  the  daughter  into  a  gum  factory.  The  family  is  now  in 
better  circumstances,  but  there  is  no  sign  that  the  girl  wishes  a  return  to  school  or  that  her 
mother  desires  it.  B  is  pursuing  the  business  course ;  C,  after  six  months,  went  to  a  busi- 
ness college,  and  was  searching  for  a  place  when  she  was  visited.  The  fourth  girl  belonged 
to  a  superior,  ambitious  family  and  was  studying  the  classical  course  preparatory  to  the 
normal  school  and  the  teaching  profession. 


404  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

AGE  OF  PUPILS  LEAVING  SCHOOL 

The  average  age  of  a  total  of  608  boys  and  girls  receiving  work 
certificates  between  January  i,  1909,  and  June  i,  191 1,  was  found 
to  be  fourteen  years  and  five  months,  the  average  for  girls  being 
less  than  that  for  boys.  Twenty-nine  per  cent  of  the  377  boys 
went  to  work  as  soon  as  they  became  fourteen  years  old.  All  those 
less  than  fourteen  (at  the  time  of  the  June  closing  some  under 
fourteen  take  out  their  papers)  and  those  not  yet  fourteen  years 
and  one  month  old  are  placed  in  the  above  class.  In  some  cases 
the  children  refuse  to  stay  in  school,  even  though  their  graduation 
comes  in  a  week's  time  ahead.  Of  the  girls,  35  per  cent  stopped 
school  when  they  reached  fourteen,  again  showing  the  inferior 
level  set  for  girls.  The  whole  situation  discloses  how  firmly  and 
generally  a  minimum  standard  upheld  by  law  is  responded  to  by 
this  community. 

REASONS  FOR  LEAVING  SCHOOL 

There  is  some  value  in  catching  the  drift  of  sentiment  as  it 
comes  from  the  lips  of  parents  and  children.  Their  criticism  of 
the  school  is  neither  discriminating  nor  conclusive,  yet  a  success- 
ful school  system  cannot  afford  to  neglect  the  reaction  of  its  pupils 
and  patrons.  To  get  at  the  matter,  the  question  was  put,  Why  did 
A  leave  school  ?  The  answers  give  only  dominant  hearsay  evidence, 
since  there  is  a  difference  between  professed  reasons  and  real  ones. 

The  answers  grouped  below  are  from  both  parent  and  child.  In 
some  cases,  several  joint  reasons  were  given  by  the  same  person. 
Necessarily,  we  are  led  away  from  the  immediate  school  problem 
in  the  classification  of  replies. 

REASONS  GIVEN 

A.  The  first  group  relates  to  the  illness  either  of  child  or  rela- 
tives, without  special  connection  with  financial  difficulties. 

CAUSE  NUMBER  OF  ANSWERS 

Father  ill 9 

Mother  ill 8 

Other  relatives  ill 2 

Illness  of  child  .    8 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     405 

Four  girls  and  one  boy  left  because  of  defective  eyes  or  general 
ill  health ;  one  boy  was  represented  by  his  mother  as  needing 
"rest"  ;  and  a  woman  said  that  "  hot  weather  is  bad  for  Nick." 

B.  The  second  group  refers  to  the  economic  status  of  the  family. 
Eight  persons  were  needed  to  work  at  home,  either  in  the  parent's 
store  or  "  to  tend  the  baby."   One  hundred  and  seventy-one  answers 
specified  the  need  of  money  as  the  determining  cause,  many  add- 
ing the  explanation  of  idleness,  irregular  work,  and  low  wages  of 
members  of  the  family. 

C.  A  third  group  of  miscellaneous  reasons  is  not  without  sug- 
gestiveness.    Ten  boys  and  girls  confessed  that  being  "  too  big 
and  awkward"  made  them  objects  of  ridicule.    Two  girls  wanted 
money  for  clothes;  four  said  "  I  was  confirmed."    One  boy  com- 
plained that  he  was  teased  for  being  a  Jew  ;  four  were  "  too  old  " 
to  go  to  school  (although  two  of  them  were  but  fourteen) ;    a 
number  said  "  I  am  fourteen  "  ;  one  youngster  made  the  proud 
reply,  "  I  was  in  the  fifth  grade  "  ;  and  others  revealed  the  same 
assumptions.     Four   answers    gave,    "  It 's    the   way   we   do    in 
our  family." 

D.  The  fourth  group  concerns  the  opinion  of  the  school.    The 
replies  are  detailed  in  the  loose  fashion  of  the  answerers'  words. 

REASON  NUMBER  OF  ANSWERS 

Did  n't  like  school 36 

Did  n't  learn 18 

Did  n't  like  teacher 15 

Preferred  to  work 13 

Trouble  in  school u 

Subjects  not  interesting 5 

"  Too  bad  "  in  school 3 

"  Mad  at  principal  " 2 

Put  back 2 

Teacher  struck  him I 

Teacher  advised  leaving I 

Quit  to  learn  something  useful 3 

In  all,  330  answers  are  represented.  Out  of  this  number  no 
gave  a  reason  bearing  negatively  on  the  school,  and  171  gave  lack 
of  money  as  the  prime  cause  of  leaving  school.  Miss  Edwards 
found  that  202  out  of  1085  children  in  St.  Louis  gave  the 


406  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

economic  cause,  and  she  estimates  that  probably  a  half  of  these 
misrepresented  the  situation.  How  far  this  is  true  in  our  district 
will  be  considered  later. 

ATTITUDE  OF  PARENTS  TO  THE  SCHOOL 

While  vague  in  details  of  criticism,  the  parents  are  dissatisfied 
with  the  schools.  They  feel  that  something  is  wrong  with  the 
teachers  and  the  subjects  taught ;  often  they  cannot  see  the  prac- 
tical advantages  of  "  schooling  "  for  their  children.  Some  women 
complain  that  the  sixth-,  seventh-,  or  eighth-grade  teacher  does 
not  "  understand  "  their  sons  and  daughters.  Irritation  is  apt  to 
assume  a  personal  cause,  and  the  natural  tendency  of  mothers  to 
take  the  side  of  their  children  leads  them  to  express  unreasonable 
dislike  for  teachers.  Yet  there  is  some  real  friction.  One  woman 
fiercely  assailed  the  manual  training  and  general  "girl's  work" 
for  her  son  ;  what  she  wanted  was  more  "  mental  "  education.  A 
Bohemian  woman  used  to  German  methods  said  that  what  the 
schools  needed  was  men  teachers.  However,  more  than  a  half  of  the 
parents  consulted  appreciate  the  advantage  and  necessity  of  a  more 
practical  training.  Many  said  that  they  could  have  contrived  to  keep 
their  children  in  school  had  suitable  instruction  been  offered. 

The  high  school  is  a  remote  institution,  not  connecting  with 
these  working  people.  Parents  ask,  "  What 's  the  use  of  sending 
John  to  high  school  ?  We  don't  belong  to  that  bunch."  They  do 
see  a  value  in  the  business  college,  because  the  canvassers  of  com- 
mercial schools  make  periodic  visits  to  parents  in  order  to  praise 
the  virtues  of  "  business  training."  It  is  hard  to  convince  parents 
that  their  children  can  obtain  a  proper  business  training  in  the  two 
years'  commercial  course  now  given  in  the  high  school.  Parents 
point  to  examples  of  neighbors'  children  who  have  become  "silly" 
on  attending  high  school.  At  the  most,  a  brief  stay  in  high  school 
is  associated  with  a  greater  chance  to  get  a  "  clean  job,"  not  with 
greater  efficiency. 

That  171  answers  specified  the  need  of  money  as  the  cause  of 
leaving  school  reveals  the  ever-present  strain  of  making  a  living, 
and  it  is  natural  that  the  attitude  to  the  school  should  be  grounded 
in  the  practical.  If  the  family  resources  are  fitful,  the  child's  wage 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     407 

is  considered  to  be  necessary,  and  under  these  circumstances  con- 
crete proof  of  the  school's  economic  value  must  be  presented  before 
the  parents  are  willing  to  have  their  children  continue. 

This  hard-headedness  of  the  parent  is  reenforced  by  custom.  In 
reply  to  the  question,  Who  was  responsible  for  A's  leaving  school  ? 
we  have  this  result : 

RESPONSIBILITY  PLACED  ON  NUMBER  OF  CASKS 

Parents  and  child  jointly 106 

Both  parents 21 

Mother 48 

Father 37 

Boy 48 

Girl ; 22 

In  38  per  cent  of  the  cases,  leaving  school  was  taken  as  a  matter 
of  course  by  both  parent  and  child  ;  in  an  equal  number  of  cases 
the  parents,  singly  or  collectively,  were  the  deciding  agents,  while 
in  24  per  cent  of  the  cases  the  boys  and  girls  were  the  active 
agents.  The  fixing  of  responsibility  is  of  course  a  most  complicated 
problem.  Still,  we  should  expect  a  peasant  mother  to  retain  her 
traditional  authority  in  the  family  and  to  demand  of  her  children  a 
contribution  to  the  family  income.  Parents  say  that  they  must  have 
the  boy's  money,  because  he  will  marry  soon  enough.  Thirteen 
children  made  the  statement  that  they  were  forced  to  leave  school, 
although  they  liked  to  go  and  were  not  "  too  poor." 

This  certainly  argues  the  need  of  educating  parents  to  the 
American  situation.  In  their  behalf,  however,  it  should  be  said 
that  a  considerable  number  expressed  a  wish  that  their  children 
continue  some  form  of  education  after  leaving  the  day  school. 
Parents  were  asked,  Do  you  want  A  to  learn  a  trade  ?  (whether 
in  school  or  out  was  not  specified).  The  parents  of  42  girls 
answered  yes,  27  no,  and  23  didn't  know.  Of  108  replies  from 
the  parents  of  boys,  61  were  affirmative,  15  were  negative,  and 
32  were  uncertain. 

THE  CHILD'S  CRITICISM  OF  THE  SCHOOL 

Although  there  is  some  parental  despotism,  most  of  the  children 
are  entirely  willing  to  leave  school.  A  part  of  this  feeling  is  due 
to  childish  love  of  novelty,  restlessness,  and  lack  of  forethought 


408  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

which  would,  under  the  most  favorable  conditions,  be  present  to 
some  degree.  Nevertheless,  the  variety  of  answers  already  listed 
and  the  manifest  disposition  to  regard  the  school  as  something 
to  be  rid  of  as  soon  as  possible,  are  evidence  of  a  serious  lack  of 
adjustment.  It  is  true  that  the  child  cannot  analyze  the  school  in- 
telligently. In  many  cases  he  says,  rather  indifferently,  "It's  all 
right,"  and  "  I  liked  it  while  I  was  there."  It  is  sometimes  said 
that  girls  are  more  contented  with  school  than  boys.  This  was 
not  found  to  be  true  in  the  stockyards.  Those  girls  who  gave  a 
distinctly  favorable  opinion  were  more  enthusiastic  than  the  boys, 
but  of  those  who  showed  marked  dissatisfaction,  39  per  cent  were 
girls.  This  ratio  reveals  no  decided  difference  as  regards  sex, 
considering  the  fact  that  in  this  matter  less  than  one  half  of  the 
persons  from  whom  opinions  were  secured  were  girls.1 

One  test  of  the  child's  real  attitude  to  school  may  be  found  in 
his  interest  in  educational  lines  of  development  after  he  leaves  the 
day  school.2  It  is  fair  to  judge  the  success  of  a  school  by  its  power 
of  arousing  interests.  Accordingly,  the  attempt  was  made  to  de- 
termine the  extent  to  which  the  boys  and  girls  attended  evening 
school  and  clubs  after  going  to  work.  Forty-five  girls  said  point 
blank  that  they  never  had  continued  or  wished  to  continue  in  night 
school  or  to  study  or  to  do  "  heavy  reading,"  some  of  them  adding 
that  they  were  "  too  tired  "  or  spent  their  extra  time  in  dancing. 

1  More  information  about  the  status  of  boys  than  of  girls  was  secured.   While  it  is  be- 
lieved that  the  figures  in  regard  to  girls  represent  the  general  trend,  more  data  are  neces- 
sary.  A  special  investigation  of  girls  is  now  under  way,  and  the  results  of  this  study  will  be 
more  conclusive. 

2  In  studying  the  answers  of  working  boys  in  night  schools  and  in  factories  to  simple 
questions  about  civil  government  and  history,  Mr.  Ristine  discovered  the  following : 

"  Very  few  of  the  boys  could  be  termed  good  in  this  test,  not  many  were  even  fair,  and 
by  far  the  larger  per  cent  were  marked  poor  or  poor  minus,  which  in  this  table  means  very 
close  to  zero. 

"  Taking  the  matter  up  from  the  standpoint  of  the  grades,  it  may  be  said  that  the  eighth- 
grade  boy  has  enough  knowledge  of  civil  government  so  that  the  more  important  points  of 
the  subject  will  probably  clear  up  in  his  mind  as  he  gets  a  little  older  and  reads  the  news- 
papers more.  The  same  thing  can  be  said  for  a  very  few  of  the  seventh-grade  boys.  The 
information  of  the  sixth-  and  fifth-grade  boys  is  so  meager  along  the  lines  of  civil  govern- 
ment and  history  that  it  seems  doubtful  whether  they  will  ever  have  understanding  of  what 
democratic  government  is. 

"  It  was  also  a  disappointing  fact  that  the  boys  who  were  nearing  their  majority  were  the 
very  poorest,  as  a  rule,  while  the  younger  boys  fresh  from  school  were  able  to  answer  with 
much  more  facility."  —  "  Educational  Status  of  Working  Boys  of  School  Age  in  the  City  of 
Chicago,"  University  of  Chicago  Dissertations,  pp.  37,  38. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     409 

Fifty-seven  boys  gave  similar  testimony  that  their  education  was 
finished.  One  boy  said,  in  answer  to  the  query  whether  he  had 
gone  to  night  school,  "  I  am  able  to  read,"  evidently  considering 
the  matter  settled.  Of  a  total  of  180  cases,  22  boys  and  8  girls 
had  been  to  night  school.  Three  girls  and  24  boys  professed  an 
intention  to  go.  Two  boys  had  gone  to  Lake  High  night  school 
for  the  instruction  in  drawing,  but  had  left  after  a  few  lessons. 
One  boy,  after  having  been  told  of  Lewis  Institute,  planned  to 
go.  Three  boys  and  I  girl  had  gone  to  business  college,  but  were 
discontented  because  they  had  secured  no  position  in  commercial 
work  afterward.  Several  were  distributed  in  settlement  clubs,  the 
School  of  Citizenship,  a  Turner  society,  sewing  and  music  classes, 
and  Davis  Square  1  activities.  A  conservative  estimate  is  that  one 
half  of  the  entire  number  considered  their  education  closed.  About 
40  had  actually  attended  evening  classes,  some  for  a  very  short 
time,  showing  not  only  a  want  of  interest  but  also  the  physical 
impossibility  of  profiting  much  by  night  instruction  after  the  day's 
work.  The  willingness  of  27  children  to  embrace  an  opportunity 
for  further  training  indicated  partly  a  real  desire  in  those  possessed 
of  unusual  ambition,  partly  a  temporary  enthusiasm  destined  soon 
to  give  way  to  indifference. 

Leaving  aside  such  drawbacks  as  unfavorable  home  conditions, 
improper  food,  and  the  personal  dislike  of  teachers,  the  elements 
of  the  child's  opinion  of  the  school  may  be  summed  up  in  two 
counts.  He  feels  that  there  is  a  lack  of  interest,  activity,  and 
appeal  to  his  constructive  powers  in  the  present  course  of  study, 
and  he  contrasts  this  situation  with  the  wider  world  of  amuse- 
ment, freedom,  and  contact  with  people.  Second,  he  cannot  see 
the  connection  between  what  he  is  studying  and  his  future  job. 

The  proof  of  this  conclusion  is  drawn  from  observation  of  the 
schools,  the  testimony  of  teachers,  and  acquaintance  with  the  child 
and  the  parent.  In  many  cases  the  children  proudly  exhibited 
their  drawing,  painting,  and  needlework  to  the  visitor,  lamenting 
that  they  had  no  chance  to  use  their  skill  in  the  positions  held ; 
many  of  the  older  boys  confessed  that  by  reason  of  their  early 

1  A  neighborhood  small  park  center  under  the  management  of  the  South  Park  Com- 
missioners. 


410  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

withdrawal  they  were  not  fitted  for  positions  suited  to  their  in- 
clinations. The  vague  dissatisfaction  of  some  of  the  younger 
children  becomes  defined  as  time  shows  the  defects  of  their 
preparation. 

One  thing  that  strikes  everyone  acquainted  with  the  people  of 
our  neighborhood  is  the  ignorance  both  of  parent  and  child  regard- 
ing the  educational  opportunities  now  existing.  It  was  found  that 
a  Polish  woman  did  not  know  that  there  was  a  night  school  in  a 
public  school  within  two  blocks  of  her  house,  and  the  boys  and 
girls  were  not  familiar  with  the  art  schools  and  technical  schools 
which  offer  instruction.  It  is  manifestly  one  of  our  first  duties  to 
remedy  this  failure  to  utilize  all  the  agencies  now  available.  There 
is  a  great  need  of  spreading  abroad  full  knowledge  of  all  the  pres- 
ent educational  resources  of  Chicago.  Perhaps  the  parent  lacks 
such  information  more  than  the  child. 

SECTION  II.    THE  JOB  AND  THE  FAMILY  INCOME 

I 

VARIETIES  OF  OCCUPATIONS,  WAGES,  AND  ADVANCEMENT 

We  Shall  here  concern  ourselves  with  some  salient  facts  regard- 
ing the  character  of  juvenile  occupations  and  their  possibilities. 
Before  presenting  the  classified  data,  several  typical  experiences 
of  boys  and  girls  in  our  neighborhood  may  be  narrated. 

W  left  school  nearly  three  years  ago,  a  seventh  grader,  fourteen 
years  old.  He  did  not  know  what  he  wanted  to  do ;  just  wanted 
a  "  job  "  because  he  was  tired  of  school.  His  first  place  was  driv- 
ing an  express  wagon  at  $4  a  week.  This  he  kept  for  six  months. 
Next  he  nailed  boxes  at  Hammond's  packing  plant  at  $7.50  per 
week.  Then  he  "  bottled  "  for  a  brewery  at  $8  a  week,  holding 
this  position  six  weeks.  W  has  been  idle  exactly  half  the  time 
since  he  left  school,  and  has  earned  $452,  an  average  per  month 
of  $13.43.  When  asked,  "What  can  you  do?"  he  replied, 
"Anything." 

S,  a  Bohemian  girl,  has  been  out  of  school  for  ten  months, 
quitting  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  in  the  seventh  grade.  Her  first 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     411 

position  was  "peeling  in  a  peanut  factory,"  as  she  phrased  it. 
After  two  weeks  here  at  $4.50  she  left  to  become  a  packer  in  a 
spice  mill  at  $4  a  week,  continuing  for  four  months.  She  has 
been  idle  more  than  half  the  time.  She  was  dull,  and  thoroughly 
tired  of  the  factory.  She  wanted  housework. 

J,  a  Polish  boy,  secured  a  place  as  errand  boy  in  a  printing 
establishment  at  $$  a  week;  he  stayed  one  week,  then  left  sud- 
denly, alleging  that  it  was  "  too  hard,  too  heavy  bundles  to  carry." 
Next  as  errand  boy  in  the  stockyards  he  worked  four  weeks  at  a 
wage  of  $4.  Following  this  he  took  a  place  in  Donnelley's  press 
in  the  same  capacity  of  errand  boy  and  for  the  same  pay.  He 
remained  here  three  weeks.  He  said  that  he  hated  all  the  places 
he  had  held  and  wanted  "  office  work." 

Although  her  mother  wanted  C  to  learn  dressmaking,  she  re- 
fused and  entered  a  soap  factory  as  "wrapper,"  the  wage  being 
$3.50.  After  four  months  at  the  place  she  received  $5.50,  and 
said  that  was  as  much  as  she  could  ever  earn  there.  She  liked 
her  work  because  it  was  "  easy,"  and  expressed  pleasure  that  she 
had  stopped  school  in  the  sixth  grade.  Her  mother  said  that  C 
had  left  school  because  the  father  was  then  out  of  work. 

B,  an  intelligent  and  ambitious  boy,  has  worked  steadily  for  two 
years,  first  as  clerk  in  Rothschild's  department  store  at  $5.50, 
then  in  the  uniform  factory  at  $6,  his  present  wage.  He  disliked 
his  work  and  said  that  he  wanted  to  do  nothing  but  draw,  proudly 
relating  his  proficiency  and  success  in  having  pictures  "exhibited  " 
when  in  the  public  schools. 

R  has  worked  at  six  different  places  in  the  thirteen  months  he 
has  been  employed  since  leaving  school.  After  spending  $75  in 
tuition  at  a  telegraph  operators'  school,  he  failed  to  find  work  in 
this  occupation  and  proceeded  to  go  the  rounds  of  messenger  boy, 
stock  boy,  tobacco  cutter,  etc.,  earning  an  aggregate  sum  of  $352.57 
in  twenty-seven  months,  an  average  of  $19.28  per  month  for  the 
actual  working  period,  and  an  average  of  $9.36  per  month  for 
the  entire  time.  The  places  were  all  secured  by  the  method  of 
"seeing  a  sign,"  "following  up  ads,"  and  "being  told  by  a 
friend."  A  position  leading  to  telegraphy  has  now  been  secured 
for  him. 


412 

Some  representative  facts  are  brought  out  by  each  of  these  cases. 
W,  being  large  and  strong,  received  fairly  good  wages  because  of 
the  heavy  man's  work  he  performed,  but  there  was  no  difference 
in  the  length  of  time  of  idleness  between  his  various  jobs,  and 
he  showed  a  decreasing  zeal  in  looking  for  work. 

S  received  less  money  at  the  second  job  than  at  her  first  place. 
She  is  an  exception,  however,  in  preferring  housework  to  factory 
employment. 

J  is  an  example  of  the  boy  with  an  ambition  for  office  work 
without  either  the  necessary  training  or  capacity. 

C  is  well  satisfied  with  her  factory  job,  although  the  $5.50 
maximum  wage  offers  no  great  future. 

B  is  obviously  out  of  place  in  a  uniform  factory,  since  there  is 
nothing  in  the  work  corresponding  to  his  interests  and  talents. 

The  last  boy  cited  is  a  type  of  those  who  knock  about  from 
one  job  to  another,  at  last  hitting  upon  a  congenial  occupation. 
He  had  the  advantage  of  special  training  in  a  telegraphy  school, 
even  though,  as  he  said,  the  teacher  was  "  bum  "  and  the  manager 
"  swindled  "  him.1 

Judged  from  these  cases,  a  few  tentative  observations  may  be 
made.  For  children  not  yet  sixteen  years  old,  who  need  unspe- 
cialized  occupation  calling  for  initiative,  interest  in  processes,  and 
affording  the  worker  a  sense  of  achievement,  the  character  of  the 
successive  jobs  secured  is  not  encouraging.  They  are  unrelated 
and  noneducative.  A  boy  may  quit  or  be  "fired"  and  suffer  no 
great  inconvenience  in  finding  another  place,  either  like  the  former 
one  or  totally  different.  On  the  other  hand,  there  may  be  long 
intervals  of  idleness  between  jobs,  the  results  of  which  are  both 
unprofitable  financially  and  demoralizing.  Nor  does  such  enforced 
idleness  tend  to  bring  the  boy  back  into  school ;  school  no  longer 
receives  consideration.  Thus  we  see  the  boy  after  he  is  out  of 


1  There  were  other  assertions  that  private  commercial  schools  are  giving  poor  instruc- 
tion, yet  they  flourish.  The  demand  for  the  training  persists  in  spite  of  the  questionable 
advertising  methods  of  the  "  colleges." 

The  employment  secretary  of  a  mail-order  house  employing  many  boys  says  that  a  large 
number  of  graduates  of  business  colleges  apply  for  work,  that  they  are  often  unprepared  for 
office  routine,  and  that  the  ordinary  jobs  offered  them  are,  by  the  boys,  considered  inferior 
to  what  their  notions  of  their  own  attainments  lead  them  to  expect. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     413 

school,  finding  or  failing  to  find  suitable  employment,  with  the 
chances  all  against  his  meeting  with  that  line  of  work  for  which 
his  tastes  or  his  meager  equipment  would  seem  to  fit  him.  The 
haphazard  methods  of  securing  work  which  the  boy  is  compelled 
to  use  can  lead  to  no  other  consequence. 

How  POSITIONS  ARE  SECURED 

The  hit-or-miss  way  of  finding  work  is  proved  by  the  testimony 
of  parent  and  child.  There  are  two  chief  methods  of  finding  a 
place.  One  is  to  have  the  path  made  easy  by  the  father  or  mother 
or  other  relative  "who  has  a  pull"  with  the  boss,  and  with  this 
method  may  be  included  the  plan  of  having  "  a  friend  put  in  a 
word."  The  second  way  is  to  "  hang  around  "  after  leaving  school 
or  a  previous  place,  looking  up  "  ads,"  walking  the  streets  in  order 
to  catch  sight  of  the  "  Boy  Wanted  "  signal,  or  making  written 
and  oral  application  to  many  establishments.'  Data  on  this  point 
show  about  an  equal  number  of  boys  and  girls  using  the  "assisted  " 
and  the  "  alone  "  method.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  aid  in  many 
cases  is  but  nominal,  and  the  places  are  not  invariably  superior  to 
those  obtained  without  help.  Girls  working  in  a  particular  factory 
"speak  for"  their  younger  sisters  and  their  acquaintances:  on  a 
dark  winter  morning  may  be  seen  groups  of  girls  from  a  neighbor- 
hood entering  the  street  car  bound  for  the  same  store  or  factory. 
The  desire  of  companionship  often  determines  the  selection  of 
work,  perhaps  more  with  girls  than  with  boys.  A  company  of  four 
girl  "  chums  "  came  to  the  Settlement  looking  for  employment, 
and  refused  possible  individual  chances  because  they  wanted  to 
work  in  one  place.  The  employer  has  a  difficulty  here,  because 
when  one  girl  quits  the  others  follow. 

In  a  few  instances  it  was  found  that  the  father  or  the  older 
children  obtained  desirable  places  for  members  of  their  family, 
such  as  opportunities  to  learn  dressmaking,  printing,  plumbing, 
and  the  jewelry  business.  A  large  number  of  the  boys  in  the 
packing-house  district  make  written  application  and  secure  jobs 
as  errand  boys  in  the  stockyards.  A  few  resort  to  private  employ- 
ment agencies,  and  pay  a  fee  of  from  one  to  three  dollars  on 
securing  a  place. 


414  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  human  side  of  these  situations  should  not  be  overlooked. 
There  are  boys  who  stop  school  the  day  they  are  fourteen,  inter- 
mittently look  for  work,  elude  the  truancy  officer  for  weeks,  and 
are  strenuously  defended  by  their  parents.  Boys,  and  girls  too, 
abandon  fairly  good  places  without  apparent  reason  and  without 
prospects  of  another  position.  A  gang  of  boys  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  Settlement  have  a  practice  of  working  until  they  have  accu- 
mulated a  little  money,  when  they  leave  their  employers  without 
notice,  knowing  that  a  place  as  messenger  boy  is  almost  always 
available.  Young  girls  take  their  cold  lunches  down  town  to  spend 
the  day  tramping  the  streets  looking  for  work.  Mothers  force  their 
children  out  of  the  house  early  in  the  morning,  forbidding  them 
to  come  home  until  late  at  night  unless  they  have  found  jobs,  so 
strong  is  the  feeling  of  the  immigrant  woman  that  there  is  no 
excuse  for  not  working.  In  two  instances  a  long-continued  period 
of  idleness,  very  likely  through  no  fault  of  the  boys,  ended  in  their 
banishment  from  home  —  to  sleep  in  stables  and  alleys  —  and  a 
further  lessening  of  chances  to  meet  the  favor  of  an  employer. 
This  is  more  evidence  of  the  authority  of  the  parent  over  the 
economic  fortunes  of  the  child,  and  the  general  consent  that  no 
matter  what  the  conditions  are  the  child  must  bring  in  money. 

CLASSIFICATION  OF  KINDS  OF  JOBS 

The  following  grouping  is  merely  suggestive.  It  is  made  from 
a  record  of  cases  coming  under  the  observation  of  the  Settlement 
during  the  past  year ;  it  has  to  do  with  the  character  of  positions 
held  by  boys  and  girls  between  fourteen  and  seventeen  years  of  age. 

KINDS  OF  JOBS  NUMBER  OF  POSITIONS 

Factory  (box,  candy,  tin,  biscuit,  etc.) 252 

Errand  boy 109 

Mercantile  establishment 62 

Messenger 26 

Office 19 

Driving  wagon 16 

Domestic  service 15 

Working  around  saloon,  grocery,  bakery,  etc 15 

Farm  work 9 

Telephone  operator 2 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     415 

Miscellaneous  skilled  occupations  : 

NUMBER  OF  POSITIONS 

Dressmaking 9 

Millinery 4 

Printer's  apprentice 3 

Tailor's  apprentice 3 

Butcher's  apprentice 3 

Cooper's  apprentice 2    • 

Druggist's  apprentice 2 

Baker's  apprentice 2 

Plumber's  apprentice 2 

Tinner's  apprentice 1 I 

Carpenter's  apprentice I 

Jeweler's  apprentice I 

Painter's  apprentice I 

Telegraph  operator I 

Total  of  skilled  occupations 35 

Total  of  all  occupations 560 

The  classification  needs  explanation.  Under  the  factory  heading 
are  placed  those  positions  which  are  largely  mechanical,  which  re- 
quire a  short  time  in  learning,  little  responsibility,  and  great  special- 
ization of  processes.  This  group  is  composed  of  jobs  in  candy,  box, 
tin,  hammock,  biscuit,  gum,  canning,  and  piano  establishments,  and 
some  operations  in  clothing,  machine,  and  printing,  industries. 

The  errand-boy  group  is  made  up  chiefly  of  those  boys  either 
in  down-town  firms  or.  in  the  packing  establishments,  whose  main 
work  is  to  deliver  packages  and  messages,  and  is  distinguished 
both  from  the  private  telegraph  messenger  service  and  the  "office 
work,"  which  mainly  has  to  do  with  indoor  routine.  Mercantile 
employments  comprise  the  jobs  in  department  and  other  large 
stores  —  cash  boys  and  girls,  stock  keepers,  bundlers,  clerks,  and 
addressers.  In  the  "  skilled  occupation"  are  included  those  places 
which  promise  to  lead  to  a  recognized  trade.  The  farm  work  rep- 
resented here  in  most  cases  does  not  mean  a  serious  application  to 
farming  —  usually  temporary  chances  to  do  the  odd  jobs  possible 
for  boys  on  farms  of  acquaintances.  The  domestic  service  of  the 
girls  often  means  short-time  positions  in  families  needing  some 
one  to  assist  in  taking  care  of  children.  In  some  cases  "  dress- 
making "  fails  to  offer  an  opportunity  to  learn  a  number  of  the 
processes  involved  in  needlework. 


416  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

A  few  boys  and  girls  in  offices,  factories,  and  department  stores 
may  rise  to  places  requiring  responsibility  and  skill.  Some  errand 
boys  have  become  heads  of  departments,  just  as  some  cash  girls 
have  become  "  buyers."  However,  it  is  apparent  that  the  majority 
of  these  positions  are  low  in  grade  and  require  little  preparation 
and  skill.  Of  these  45  per  cent  are  factory  positions  ;  34  per  cent 
are  in  errand,  office,  and  mercantile  employments ;  and  those  which 
can  be  designated  as  leading  to  skilled  and  high-grade  occupations 
are  less  than  10  per  cent  of  the  total.  This,  moreover,  is  an  ex- 
ceedingly liberal  estimate  of  the  situation.  The  report  of  the 
Massachusetts  Commission  says  that  "33  per  cent  of  the  children 
of  this  State  who  begin  work  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  are 
employed  in  unskilled  industries,  and  65  per  cent  in  low-grade 
industries :  thus  a  little  less  than  2  per  cent  are  in  high-grade 
industries."  l  It  is  difficult  to  fit  these  boys  and  girls  into  Miss 
Kingsbury's  grouping  of  occupations.  In  the  first,  the  unskilled, 
she  places  those  in  which  there  is  repetition  of  a  single  process, 
in  which  knowledge  of  one  part  is  not  essential  to  that  of  another. 
These  occupations  are  no  preparation  for  skilled  labor ;  in  fact 
they  are  often  a  handicap  because  of  the  routine.  Low-grade 
skilled  industries,  the  second  class,  are  cleaner  ;  they  require  more 
care,  time  of  learning,  and  versatility,  lead  to  numerous  openings, 
and  command  higher  wages.  Such  operations  are  those  centering 
about  power  machines,  the  handwork  in  the  clothing  industry,  and 
woodworking  in  factories.  The  third  group,  the  high-grade  skilled 
industries,  requires  several  years  of  preparation  or  apprenticeship, 
and  implies  knowledge  of  related  processes  and  great  skill. 

Unless  one  has  a  record  of  children  for  a  number  of  years,  as 
well  as  an  indication  of  the  future  of  the  particular  industries  here 
represented,  an  accurate  grouping  cannot  be  made.  Assuming 
that  one  half  of  those  in  the  factory,  office,  mercantile,  and  errand 
classifications  and  the  domestic,  telephone,  and  farm  workers  can 
be  included  under  the  second  class  of  low-grade  skilled  industries, 
we  have  the  following  proportion  :  PERCENTAGE 

Unskilled  occupations 49 

Low-grade  skilled 44 

High-grade  skilled 7 

1  Massachusetts  Report,  p.  31. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     417 

This,  however,  is  not  a  reasonable  supposition.  The  larger 
number  are  in  the  specifically  juvenile  occupations  in  which  the 
appeal  is  made  to  youthful  quickness,  delicacy  of  touch,  and  easily 
acquired  skill  in  a  few  processes.  There  is  little  incentive  to  grow, 
and  no  preparation  for  further  work  in  the  respective  avenues  of 
employment.  These  occupations  can  claim  to  be  nothing  else  than 
children's  temporary  means  of  earning  money. 

FIRST  JOBS  OF  GIRLS 

The  situation  with  regard  to  girls  is  clearly  shown  by  the  record 
of  the  first  positions  of  86  girls  who  left  the  local  schools  between 
fourteen  and  sixteen  years  of  age. 

KINDS  OF  JOBS  NUMBER  OF  GIRLS 

Factory  (candy,  box,  soap,  etc.) 52 

Department  store 9 

Printing  establishments 7 

Dressmaking 6 

Domestic  service '. 5 

Millinery 2 

Tailor's  apprentice 2 

Helping  in  grocery 2 

Office    .  i 


WAGES  OF  GIRLS 

The  average  beginning  wage  of  the  girls  included  above  is  $3.61 
per  week.    The  following  table  represents  the  distribution  : 

WAGES                                                                                                    NUMBER  OF  PERSONS 

Not  exceeding  $1.00 5 

From  $1.00  to  $2.00 3 

From  $2.00  to  $2.50 4 

From  $2.50  to  $3.00 6 

From  $3.00  to  $3.50 25 

From  $3.50  to  $4.00 14 

From  $4.00  to  $4.50 ; 12 

From  $4.50  to  $5.00 4 

From  $5.00  to  $5.50 9 

From  $5.50  to  $6.00 i 

From  $6.00  to  $6.50 I 

From  $6.50  to  $7.00 i 

From  $7.00  to  $7.50 i 


418  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

As  is  evident,  the  beginning  wage  of  a  large  number  fluctuates 
between  $3  and  $4.  Girls  who  make  less  than  $2  a  week  are 
either  apprentices  in  millinery  and  dressmaking  or  those  who  find 
positions  in  housework  or  in  local  stores. 

The  entire  group  of  girls  here  considered  have  been  at  work 
for  a  period  ranging  from  a  month  to  a  year  and  eight  months, 
the  greater  number  having  worked  about  five  months.  During 
this  time  59  have  had  only  one  position,  and  27  have  had  more 
than  one.  In  the  case  of  those  who  remained  in  one  place,  the 
average  increase  of  pay  up  to  the  time  when  the  girls  were  inter- 
viewed was  1 8  cents  per  week.  Of  those  who  changed  places,  the 
last  job  averaged  a  weekly  wage  of  $3.83,  slightly  above  that  of 
those  who  remained  in  one  place.  However,  3  girls  received  less 
pay  in  the  last  job,  5  earned  the  same  amount,  and  19  increased 
their  wages.  There  is  some  justification  for  saying  that  the  girls 
who  change  jobs,  whether  voluntarily  or  because  they  are  "  fired," 
suffer  no  decrease  in  wages ;  on  the  whole,  outside  of  the  possible 
idleness,  there  seems  to  be  a  slight  advantage  in  migrating.  There 
is  more  shifting  of  places  in  the  case  of  boys,  however.  In  follow- 
ing up  the  boys  and  girls  receiving  work  certificates,  one  can  count 
on  one  person  out  of  four  being  idle  when  visited.  This  ratio  is 
exclusive  of  those  girls  who  are  helping  at  home.  There  is  no 
superiority  in  the  character  of  the  last  jobs  when  compared  with 
the  first  ones.  The  change  from  factory  to  factory  does  not  lead 
to  better  opportunities,  as  the  following  table  indicates. 

Those  who  changed  jobs  show  these  differences  in  positions : 

FIRST  JOBS  LAST  JOBS 

Factory 19  Factory 18 

Department  store 2  Department  store 4 

Domestic 2    •  Domestic 3 

Grocery 2  Grocery o 

Dressmaking i  Dressmaking o 

Office i  Office 5 

There  is  no  marked  advance.  In  four  instances  girls  quit 
to  take  places  in  the  same  line  of  'work  elsewhere.  In  three 
cases  they  received  more  money ;  in  one  case  there  was  .no 
advance. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     419 


RELATION  OF  WAGE  TO  GRADE  AND  AGE 

Of  the  girls  who  changed  jobs,  14  out  of  the  19  whose  wages 
advanced  stopped  school  and  took  jobs  before  they  were  fifteen 
years  old,  and  5  were  above  fifteen  years.  Of  those  whose  earn- 
ing power  decreased,  2  were  fourteen  years  old  and  i  fifteen  and 
seven  months.  Those  whose  pay  remained  the  same  were  all  four- 
teen years  of  age.  As  to  grades  in  school  of  those  whose  wages 
increased,  2  were  in  the  eighth  grade,  I  in  the  fourth  grade,  6  in 
the  seventh  grade,  and  IO  in  the  sixth  grade.  Of  those  whose 
wages  diminished,  2  were  in  the  seventh  grade  and  I  in  the  fifth 
grade.  Of  those  not  advancing  in  pay,  i  was  in  the  seventh  grade 
and  4  were  in  the  sixth  grade. 

In  the  accompanying  table  the  fortunes  of  59  girls  who  stayed 
each  in  one  position  are  shown.  The  weekly  earnings  at  the  time 
the  girls  were  seen  are  placed  in  relation  to  the  age  and  grade 
reached  on  leaving  school. 


NUMBER  OF 
GIRLS 

WAGES 

AGE 

GRADE 

14-14| 

14J-15 

15-15$ 

15^-16 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

4      ... 

Not  exceeding  $1.00 

2 

2 

.  — 

— 

— 

— 

— 

I 

2 

I 

I      ... 

From  $1.00  to    2.00 

I 



— 

— 

— 

I 

— 

— 

— 

— 

3    •    •    • 

2.00  to    2.50 

I 

2 

— 

— 

— 

— 

I 

I 

— 

I 

4     ... 

2.50  to    3.00 

I 

3 

— 

— 

— 

— 

I 

2 

i 

— 

12       ... 

3.00  t6    3.50 

8 

*> 

2 

— 

I 

— 

2 

4 

2 

3 

II       ... 

3.50  to    4.00 

6 

3 

I 

I 

— 

— 

I 

5 

4 

i 

IO       .       .       . 

4.00  to    4.50 

10 

— 



— 

— 

I 

3 

5 

— 

i 

3     •     •     •  , 

4.50  to    5.00 

i 

i 

I 

— 

I 

I 

— 

i 

— 

— 

7     ... 

5.00  to    5.50 

2 

2 

I 

2 

— 

— 

2 

2 

I 

2 

i     ... 

5.50  to    6.00 

I 



— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

I 

— 

i     ... 

6.00  to    6.50 







i 

— 

I 

— 

— 

— 

— 

i     ... 

6.50  to    7.00 

I 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

i 

— 

— 

— 

i     ... 

7.00  to    7.50 





I 

— 

— 

— 

— 



— 

i 

There  is  no  indication  that  those  leaving  school  in  the  higher 
grades  will  receive  higher  wages.  The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  is 
not  that  the  school  is  useless  or  that  it  is  not  desirable  for  all  to 
remain  through  the  eighth  grade.  In  fact,  the  present  elementary 
school  is  constructed  on  the  basis  of  an  eight-year  course,  and  its 


420  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

full  benefit  cannot  be  had  if  there  is  a  shorter  period  of  attend- 
ance. The  "  fundamentals,"  the  tools  for  reaching  the  world's  in- 
heritance, —  reading,  writing,  number,  and  history,  —  are  essential 
for  all.  Mr.  Ristine  demonstrated  the  superiority  of  eighth-grade 
boys  ;  the  tests  used  were  questions  in  the  formal  school  branches. 

The  point  is,  considering  the  inferior  employments  open  to 
children,  a  longer  stay  in  the  elementary  school  does  not  help 
financially.  Two  problems  are  left  open  :  (i)  a  reorganization  of 
the  school  with  the  occupations  as  centers  of  interest,  for  the 
sake  of  the  "fundamentals";  (2)  a  vocational  purpose,  making  a 
longer  attendance  obligatory  and  worth  while. 

It  is  true  that  the  highest  beginning  wages,  $7,  was  secured  by 
an  eighth-grade  girl,  but  nine  eighth-graders  received  less  than 
$5.50  and  fare  no  better  than  the  sixth-graders.  While  the  maxi- 
mum wage  was  reached  by  a  fifteen-year-old  girl,  a  wage  of  $6.90, 
10  cents  a  week  less,  belonged  to  a  fourteen-year-old  girl.  Size  or 
general  dexterity  seems  to  determine  wages  more  than  age  and 
grade  in  school.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  occupations  open 
to  girls  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  years,  it  is  manifestly  not 
an  economic  advantage  to  continue  in  school  after  the  minimum 
age  has  been  reached. 

Eight  girls  of  the  number  included  above  were  studied  by 
Mrs.  C.  B.  McArthur.  We  may  observe  the  relation  between  their 
school  record  and  their  industrial  careers. 

Case  i.  School  record :  absent  sixty-eight  days  during  last  year ;  conduct 
and  effort  good ;  average  mentality ;  repeated  grades  two,  four,  and  six.  In- 
dustrial record:  candy  factory,  two  weeks,  $3  per  week;  printing  firm  — 
bindery  —  $5.  Likes  the  job  ;  chance  of  making  $12  a  week. 

Case  2.  Retarded,  absence  great.  Gum  factory,  $4.50  per  week.  Now  out 
of  work. 

Case  3.  Considerable  absence ;  mentality  good,  but  a  "  repeater."  Parisian 
Novelty  Company,  $2.50  per  week;  box  factory,  $3.50  per  week.  Satisfied 
with  the  place. 

Case  4.  Average  mentality;  good  effort  and  conduct.  Box  factory,  $3.50; 
then  housework  at  $3  per  week. 

Case  5.  Average  mentality,  conduct  poor.  Box  factory,  two  months,  $3 
per  week ;  then  fig  packer,  $4  per  week.  Likes  the  "  short  hours." 

Case  6.  Restless,  unreliable,  conduct  poor ;  repeated  one  grade.  Factory, 
$3  per  week;  then  fig  packer,  $4  per  -week. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     421 


Case  7.  Absence ;  did  n't  get  along  well.  Candy  factory,  $3  ;  then  factory, 
$4  per  week. 

Case  8.  Absence  great,  conduct  fair,  average  mentality.  Office,  $3  per 
week ;  then  at  Libby's  packing  plant.  Irregular  wages,  $4  to  $6  per  week. 

All  except  Case  8  were  fourteen  years  old  ;  all  except  Case  7 
left  school  in  the  sixth  grade.  The  fifteen-year-old  girl  and  the 
girl  leaving  school  in  the  fourth  grade  met  the  same  fortunes  as 
the  rest.  There  does  not  appear  to  be  any  noticeable  positive  re- 
lation between  conduct  and  mentality  as  judged  by  conventional 
school  requirements  and  success  or  failure  in  the  employment 
undertaken  by  the  girls. 

RELATION  OF  WORKING  PERIOD  TO  WAGES 

Since  the  working  periods  of  the  girls  whose  records  were 
secured  vary  greatly,  not  much  can  be  said  on  this  point.  Of  25 
girls  whose  working  time  was  six  months,  1 3  increased  in  amounts 
from  50  cents  to  $2  per  week,  and  12  received  an  equal  wage  at 
the  end  of  the  time.  At  the  end  of  twenty  months  I  girl  whose 
initial  pay  was  $3  per  week  in  a  candy  factory  was  receiving  $4  a 
week  in  a  spice  mill.  Several  times  a  girl  doubled  her  wage  in 
two  months,  and  then  continued  to  work  without  increase.  Of  1 5 
girls  at  work  an  average  of  fourteen  months,  7  were  receiving  no 
more  money  at  the  end  of  the  time  than  at  the  beginning,  and 
the  highest  advance  was  from  $2  to  $6.  There  is  not  sufficient 
information  to  show  the  ups  and  downs  of  the  girls  who  held 
three  or  four  jobs.  These  are  typical  cases  : 


FIRST  JOB 

SECOND  JOB 

THIRD  JOB 

FOURTH  JOB 

$2.50 

#3-50 

— 

— 

3-00 

4-OO 

— 

— 

3-5° 

5.00 

$4.00 

$3.00 

3-5o 
3.00 

5.00 
1.84 

2.50 

3-5° 

Altogether  it  is  not,  as  a  general  rule,  the  factor  of  time  and 
experience  in  the  kinds  of  occupations  open  to  girls  which  deter- 
mines their  pay.  This  would  not  be  undesirable  provided  the  chil- 
dren under  sixteen  were  preparing  themselves  for  a  self-maintaining 


422  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

future ;  the  period  of  apprenticeship  could  not  pretend  to  be  a 
lucrative  one.  The  matter  is  serious  when  a  job  calling  for  little 
skill  is  succeeded  by  another  job  similarly  lacking  in  educational 
quality,  and  when  there  is  no  relation  between  previous  training 
and  the  work  to  be  done. 

The  main  features  of  the  situation  as  regards  girls  may  be 
summarized : 

1 .  Most  of  the  jobs  secured  belong  to  the  low-grade  industries. 

2.  A  limit  is  soon  reached  in  wages. 

3.  Finding  another  job  is  sometimes  the  only  way  to  secure 
more  pay. 

4.  The  advance  is  largely  a  matter  of  chance,  there  being  no 
observable  economic  advantage  in  leaving  school  at  an  age  greater 
than  fourteen  and  a  higher  grade  at  school,  or  in  previous  ex- 
perience in  other  jobs  of  the  character  accessible  to  girls  of  the 
neighborhood. 

FIRST  JOBS  OF  BOYS 
A  grouping  of  the  jobs  of  131  boys  shows  this  result : 

FIRST  JOBS  NUMBER  OF  BOYS 

Errand  boy 51 

Factory 26 

Messenger 15 

Small  store  —  as  grocery,  bakery,  or  meat  market 10 

Mercantile  establishments 7 

Printing  firms 6 

Driving  wagon ' 5 

Office 3 

Tailor's  apprentice 2 

Baker's  apprentice 

Painter's  apprentice 

Plumber's  apprentice 

Druggist's  apprentice 

Farm 

Selling  papers 

Total 731 

An  important  feature  is  that  50  per  cent  of  the  boys  represented 
above  enter  industry  in  errand  and  messenger  service.  The  un- 
favorable character  of  telegraph-messenger  work,  with  its  irregu- 
larity, freedom,  "  tipping,"  and  precocious  acquaintance  with  the 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     423 

dark  side  of  city  life,  has  been  sufficiently  explained.1  There  is  a 
considerable  number  of  boys  who  are  given  odd  jobs  in  groceries, 
bakeries,  and  sometimes  in  saloons.  The  daily  round  is  often  hard, 
with  its  early  and  late  hours  and  constant  activity,  and  there  is  no 
factory  inspector  to  enforce  conformity  to  law,  as  in  large  estab- 
lishments. An  interesting  fact  is  the  liking  of  many  boys  for  driv- 
ing wagons,  because  of  the  excitement  and  novelty  of  traveling 
about  the  city.  There  is  great  competition  for  these  positions. 
Some  of  the  printing  firms  give  opportunities  for  boys  to  fit  them- 
selves for  one  or  more  of  the  printing  trades ;  and  the  boys  listed 
above  as  apprentices  were  confident  that  they  would  fit  into  their 
respective  trades  when  they  were  older.2  Still,  under  a  liberal 
estimate  only  twelve  of  the  one  hundred  and  thirty-one  boys  have 
any  prospects  of  reaching  a  skilled  occupation. 

CHANGES  OF  JOBS 

Fifty-five  boys  had  held  more  than  one  place.  The  chief 
changes  in  the  nature  of  the  jobs  are  : 

(i)  Errand  boys  number  18  in  the  first-job  column  and  12 
in  the  last-job  list,  and  messenger  boys  decrease  from  9  to  3  ; 

(2)  factory  jobs  number  15  in  the  first,   19  in  the  last  column; 

(3)  department-store  places    increase  from   2   to  7,  and  drivers 
of  wagons  from  2  to  6  ;  (4)  of  the  positions,  outside  of  possible 
good  opportunities  in  factories  and  stores,  which  can  be  called 
preparatory  to  first-class  occupations,  there  is  a  decrease  from  6  to 
5.    How  is  it  with  the  27  boys  who  started  in  errand  and  mes- 
senger work  ?  Their  last  jobs  are  messenger  or  errand  boys,  1 1  ; 
factory,  8  ;  department  store,  3  ;  driving  wagon,  2  ;  and  one  each 
for  printing,  office  work,  and  jewelry.    There  is,  in  these  cases,  an 
average  time  at  work  of  six  months,  and  although  the  short  time 
does  not  prove  much  about  the  future  of  the  boys,  it  does  show 
the  migration  from  one  errand  job  to  another  and  the  tendency 
to  drift  to  the  factory  work  as  they  grow  older,  and  it  confirms  the 

1  Florence  Kelley,  Some  Ethical  Gains  through  Legislation,  pp.  15-26. 

2  One  eighth-grade  Polish  boy,  from  the  vicinity  of  The  University  of  Chicago  Settlement, 
is  in  the  apprentice  school  conducted  by  the  Lakeside  Press,  and  is  "  making  good."   The 
director  of  the  school  says  that  Polish  and  Bohemian  boys  are  the  brightest  apprentices. 


424  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

judgment  of  Mr.  Cyril  Jackson  that  "  few  boys  pick  up  skill  after 
a  year  or  two  of  errand  work."  1 

The  number  of  individuals  who  are  listed  as  having  held  but 
one  job  is  large  because  some  of  the  boys  were  followed  up  only 
a  few  weeks  after  they  had  procured  their  work  certificates.  The 
proportion  of  migration  from  one  place  to  another  shown  in  the 
55  who  did  and  the  76  who  did  not  change  places  is  not  a  true 
picture  of  the  situation ;  one  must  consider  the  older  boys'  experi- 
ence to  determine  that. 

WAGES  OF  BOYS  AND  RELATION  TO  AGE  AND  GRADE 

The  average  beginning  wage  of  the  5  5  boys  who  changed  places 
is  $4.27  per  week  ;  the  average  last  wage  is  $4.96.  This  shows  a 
higher  initial  wage  and  a  greater  increase  in  practically  the  same 
period  than  is  the  case  with  girls.  Eleven  boys  received  less  money 
in  the  last  position  than  in  the  first,  and  8  received  the  same  wage. 
One  half  earned  a  beginning  wage  of  either  $4  or  $4.50,  and  45 
came  within  the  $3  to  $5  limits. 

In  this  group  12  boys  decreased  in  wages  :  7  of  these  left  school 
between  fourteen  and  fourteen  and  a  half ;  4  were  between  four- 
teen and  a  half  and  fifteen,  and  i  was  over  fifteen,  when  the 
working  papers  were  applied  for.  Of  the  8  boys  whose  wages 
remained  the  same,  2  were  fifteen  years  old,  3  less  than  fourteen 
and  a  half,  and  3  were  fourteen  years  old  when  they  left  school. 

Thirty-five  boys  increased  in  wages  :  I  was  over  fifteen  and 
a  half ;  8  were  between  fifteen  and  fifteen  and  a  half ;  5  were 
between  fourteen  and  a  half  and  fifteen  ;  and  2 1  were  less  than 
fourteen  and  a  half  when  they  stopped  school.  Since  the  average 
age  of  leaving  school  in  our  district  is  fourteen  years  and  five 
months,  these  results  are  to  be  expected ;  but  the  fact  that  the  6 
boys  getting  the  highest  beginning  wages,  between  $6  and  $9,  are 
under  fifteen  years  of  age,  and  the  fact  that  the  initial  pay  of  those 
who  received  less  than  $6  is  independent  of  the  age  reached,  tends  to 
strengthen  the  conclusion  reached  in  studying  the  histories  of  girls, 
that  there  is  no  important  relation  between  age  and  advance  in  the  oc- 
cupations open  to  children  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen. 

1  Royal  Commission  on  the  Poor  Laws  and  Relief  of  Distress,  Appendix,  Vol.  XX,  p.  20. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     425 

Does  the  boy  who  leaves  school  in  an  upper  grade  have  an 
economic  advantage  over  the  boy  who  leaves  in  a  lower  grade  ? 
Of  the  12  boys  who  decreased  in  earnings  6  left  school  in  the 
seventh  and  eighth  grades,  and  only  10  of  the  36  who  increased 
their  wages  were  seventh-  and  eighth-graders. 

On  the  whole,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  a  higher  grade  and  a  greater 
age  do  not  guarantee  better  positions  and  higher  earnings.  This 
conclusion  has  no  reference  to  any  period  other  than  the  one 
under  consideration,  for  when  the  boy  reaches  sixteen  the  case 
is  somewhat  different.  Legally,  he  is  then  allowed  to  engage  in 
a  greater  variety  of  occupations ;  if  he  is  adaptable,  positions  of 
some  promise  are  open  to  him  and  all  his  school  training  may  be 
used.  In  the  formative  period,  from  fourteen  to  sixteen,  whatever 
discipline  the  school  has  given  is  of  little  service  in  unskilled 
juvenile  occupations.1 

BOYS  HOLDING  ONE  POSITION 

Since  the  results  are  not  different  when  we  consider  those  boys 
who  have  had  a  single  job  since  leaving  school,  a  repetition  of  the 
above  statements  is  unnecessary.  Two  thirds  of  the  seventy-six 
boys  are  engaged  in  messenger,  errand,  and  factory  employments. 
Twenty-four  of  the  group  received  $4  a  week,  the  average  pay  of 
all  being  $4.42.  Some  of  those  who  receive  the  highest  pay  come 
from  the  lowest  grades  in  school.  Many  of  the  errand  boys  are 
employed  in  the  general  offices  of  the  stockyards,  in  which  $4 
and  $4.50  are  the  usual  beginning  wages. 

SCHOOL  PROGRESS  AND  INDUSTRIAL  RECORD 

There  are  not  enough  cases  to  correlate  adequately  the  later 
industrial  advance  with  the  record  of  school  progress  which  was 

1  Mr.  Ristine  studied  relative  proficiency  in  simple  intellectual  tests  of  boys  in  night 
schools  and  those  at  work.  He  found,  by  means  of  oral  and  written  questions  in  mathe- 
matics, English,  civics,  and  history,  that  boys  out  of  school  pass  examinations  inferior  to 
those  who  are  in  continuation  classes ;  that  eighth-graders  are  superior  to  boys  quitting  in 
the  sixth  and  seventh  grades ;  that  boys  in  the  carpenters'  apprentice  school,  having  a 
"  life-career  motive,"  are  better  in  the  arithmetic  test  than  those  in  other  evening  schools  or 
those  at  work  (Ristine,  "  Educational  Status  of  Working  Boys  of  School  Age  in  the  City 
of  Chicago,"  University  of  Chicago  Dissertations). 


426  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

compiled  by  Mrs.  Me  Arthur.1   The  following  instances,  however, 
are  suggestive  : 

Case  i.  School  record :  average  mentality ;  conduct  and  effort  excellent 
After  one  month's  idleness,  a  job  in  the  Yards,  $7.50  a  week. 

Case  2.  Average  mentality,  good  conduct.  First  job,  opening  doors  in  the 
Yards,  $4.50;  then  idle  four  months;  then  a  job  driving  an  express  wagon 
at  $6.25.  Prefers  work  in  machine  shop. 

Case  j.  Graduate  of  parochial  school ;  entered  fourth  grade  in  the  Hamline 
Public  School.  Absent  58  days  in  year,  conduct  good,  mind  above  the  average. 
Errand  boy,  I  week,  $5  ;  errand  bt>y,  4  weeks,  $4 ;  errand  boy,  3  weeks,  $4 ; 
out  of  work  when  seen. 

Case  4.  Suspended  from  school,  conduct  and  intelligence  poor.  Errand 
boy  in  the  Yards ;  likes  the  place. 

Case  5.  Retarded  and  frequent  absence.  Box  factory,  $5.  Parents  say  that 
the  boss  likes  their  boy. 

Case  6.  Slow  mind,  conduct  poor,  absence.  One  position  since  leaving 
school  in  a  wholesale  coffee  house,  $7 ;  very  well  satisfied. 

Case  7.  Parochial  school,  retarded.  Factory  and  department  store,  each 
$2.50;  now  errand  boy,  $4. 

Case  8.  "Repeater"  in  school.  Tinshop,  $7;  contented  because  job  is 
"  clean,  dry,  and  easy." 

Case  g.    Lazy  and  truant.    Messenger  boy,  $5. 

Case  10.  Repeated  grades  2,  3,  4.  Effort  spasmodic,  stubborn,  below  aver- 
age mentally.  Worked  for  Western  Union  several  months,  then  apprenticed 
to  a  jeweler.  His  sister  claims  that  he  is  making  excellent  progress. 

The  plain  absence  of  correlation  between  school  progress  and 
economic  progress  does  not  contradict  the  preceding  results. 

EXPERIENCE  OF  OLDER  BOYS  AND  GIRLS 

The  preceding  account  does  not  do  justice  to  some  of  the  aspects 
of  juvenile  work.  There  are  boys  who  have  had  six  jobs  in  nine 
months,  and  girls  who  have  been  "  fired  "  for  petty  offenses  or 
"  laid  off "  after  the  Christmas  season.  Not  enough  has  been  said 
of  the  effect  of  weeks  of  loafing  between  jobs,  and  the  occasional 
spurts  of  eagerness  to  find  a  place,  succeeded  by  a  period  of  abso- 
lute indifference.  Moreover,  the  comparatively  short  time  at  work 
does  not  reveal  the  history  of  the  later  industrial  life  in  which  the 
outcome  of  the  wasted  years  is  evident.  To  give  some  idea  of  what 
happens  as  time  goes  on,  the  records  of  twenty-one  —  nineteen 

1  This  report  will  appear  later. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     427 


boys  and  two  girls  —  in  addition  to  the  above  list  were  examined. 
The  time  out  of  school  was  from  one  to  four  years,  in  each  case 
carrying  the  biography  beyond  the  age  of  sixteen.  The  three  points 
to  be  noted  are  the  average  weekly  wage  estimated  on  the  basis 
of  the  entire  time  out  of  school,  in  order  to  determine  the  actual 
average  weekly  earnings  ;  the  average  time  spent  in  each  job  ;  and 
the  percentage  of  idleness  on  the  basis  of  the  entire  working  period. 


CASK  No. 

AVERAGE  WAGE 

AVERAGE  TIME  IN 
BACK  JOB 

PERCENTAGE  OF 
IDLENESS 

I*    
21    

$2.56 

7.  so 

5*  months 

8          ' 

18 

-j 

4.  CO 

I  Si        ' 

n 

-i.CQ 

7             ' 

CQ 

5     
6      .   

3-79 
1.86 

I0| 

2j*            ' 

33 
66 

7 

4.OQ 

4l          ' 

21 

8      

4.74 

I  "54        ' 

28 

q 

1.81 

•?* 

47 

10      

T.Q-I 

43         ' 

cc 

II       

4.OO 

7i         ' 

C2 

12         

13        
14 

4.21 
6.15 

4.77 

12              ' 

9 

43            < 

25 
II 

22 

I  r 

2.  CO 

4i           ' 

CA, 

16       
17 

7-36 
2.QO 

4|        ' 

-7                    ' 

II 
48 

18      

2.8? 

C  3           < 

48 

19      
20      

6.34 

^6 

12              ' 

Qi        ' 

18 

AT. 

21         

I.Q2 

->  i         » 

C2 

The  purpose  of  the  arrangement  of  the  records  above  is  to  pre- 
sent the  irregularity  in  the  three  columns.  As  to  wages,  it  is  appar- 
ent that  in  but  four  instances  has  the  average  weekly  contribution 
to  the  family  income  gone  above  $5.50.  Most  of  these  boys  are 
now  eighteen  and  nineteen  years  old.  The  highest  wage  is  received 
by  a  girl  who  stopped  school  when  nearly  sixteen  and  in  the  eighth 
grade.  In  two  years  she  has  had  three  places,  the  first  as  telephone 
operator,  and  the  present  job  as  "  saleslady  "  in  a  department  store 

l  Girls. 


428  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

at  $  10  a  week.  Department  store,  driving  of  delivery  wagons,  and 
factory  places  are  the  most  numerous.  Many  of  the  boys  held 
temporary  jobs  in  the  stockyards. 

Four  of  the  twenty-one  persons  show  an  average  time  of  hold- 
ing a  job  of  a  year  or  over ;  eleven  stayed  less  than  six  months. 
Two  thirds  of  the  boys  show  an  average  period  in  one  position 
of  less  than  nine  months. 

It  is  not  probable  that  the  figures  regarding  the  time  of  idleness 
are  exceptional.  Of  the  twenty  cases  in  which  there  was  idleness 
six  were  out  of  work  50  per  cent  or  over  of  the  entire  period  out 
of  school.  Fifteen  were  idle  more  than  a  fifth  of  the  time.  Some 
of  the  idleness  was  due  to  illness,  some  to  the  desire  of  boys  to 
take  a  vacation  between  places,  some  to  seasonal  occupations  and 
inability  to  find  work. 

Idleness  of  the  adult  workman  means  loss  of  income  and  the 
results  that  attend  this  economic  loss.  When,  however,  oppor- 
tunity to  work  again  appears,  the  workman,  as  a  rule,  finds  that 
he  has  not  lost  his  instinct  of  workmanship  or  his  habits  of  in- 
dustry. Under  normal  conditions  this  instinct  is  being  developed 
and  these  habits  are  being  formed  during  the  adolescent  period. 
While  children  in  these  years  should  have  recreation,  idleness 
during  this  period  is  inevitably  attended  by  a  more  than  economic 
loss  both  to  the  individual  and  to  the  community,  a  loss  which  can 
never  be  entirely  made  good.  It  is  a  legitimate  conclusion  from 
this  that  the  community  may  not  safely  surrender  the  training  of 
children  during  the  formative  period  of  their  lives  to  the  factory, 
the  store,  the  saloon,  messenger  service,  or  to  the  business  office. 

The  general  public  falsely  imagines  that  the  fear  of  police, 
prison,  and  scaffold  prevent  crimes  against  property,  order,  person, 
and  life.  The  value  of  this  fear  has  been  greatly  overestimated ; 
at  best  it  restrains ;  it  rarely  prevents.  The  public  is  never  pro- 
tected until  vicious  and  debasing  influences  are  removed  and  the 
life  habits  of  youth  are  formed  in  home,  school,  and  industry 
under  public  supervision  and  control.  The  cheap,  superficial,  and 
disappointing  method  of  attempting  to  prevent  crime  by  punish- 
ment actually  diverts  public  attention  and  thought  from  those 
more  radical,  thorough,  and  rational  means  which  actually  do 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     429 

prevent  the  rise  and  development  of  vicious  and  criminal  habits. 
The  life  histories  of  the  youthful  murderers  who  have  of  late 
years  shocked  Chicago  are  precisely  like  those  of  many  thousands 
of  others  who  are  being  led  downward  along  the  same  route.  The 
public  needs  also  to  be  startled  by  its  own  neglect  of  the  true 
causes  of  disease,  weakness,  immorality,  and  brutality. 

SUBNORMAL  BOYS 

In  the  local  schools  one  room  is  set  aside  for  those  children 
who  are  unable  to  progress  under  ordinary  class  instruction.  The 
after-school  record  of  ten  subnormal  boys  was  secured  in  order 
to  compare  the  industrial  careers  of  "  normal  "  and  "  subnormal  " 
children. 

Three  boys  were  found  to  be  absolutely  unfit  to  be  trusted 
with  any  position  of  responsibility.  They  were  capable  of  simple 
muscular  labor  and  needed  the  training  given  in  a  school  for  the 
feeble-minded.  One  of  the  defectives  succeeded  in  holding  two 
positions  for  several  months.  The  remaining  six  boys  were  as 
competent  as  the  "  normal  "  ones.  Two  German  boys  belonging 
to  a  large  family  in  which  the  father  is  a  drunkard  and  the  mother 
shiftless  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  work.  The  younger  became 
messenger  boy  down  town,  and  the  older  boy  worked  steadily  in 
the  stockyards  for  a  year  and  a  half,  receiving  $1.25  a  day.  After 
six  weeks  of  idleness  another  of  the  group  went  to  work  on  a  farm. 
A  uniform  wage  of  $6  a  week  during  a  period  of  fifteen  months 
was  earned  by  a  Polish  boy.  He  worked  successfully  in  a  box 
factory,  in  a  sawmill,  and  for  the  Western  Electric  Company. 
Especially  noteworthy  was  the  career  of  an  energetic  boy  who  is 
now  driving  a  sprinkling  wagon  after  a  year's  alternate  work  and 
idleness.  He  is  a  handy,  steady  worker,  anxious  to  learn  a  trade. 

Most  of  these  boys  are  vigorous  and  active ;  they  earned  an 
average  wage  of  $5.73  a  week,  an  unusual  amount.  The  high 
average  can  be  ascribed  in  part  to  the  circumstance  that  most  of 
them  were  over  fifteen  years  old  and  capable  of  heavy  work. 
However,  it  is  a  significant  commentary  on  the  connection  between 
school  and  job  as  well  as  on  the  character  of  juvenile  employment 


430  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

that  a  group  of  "  subnormal  "  boys  should  have  a  degree  of  success 
in  the  world  of  industry  which  compares  favorably  with  that  of 
those  students  who  are  pronounced  "  normal "  by  the  school. 


II 

FAMILY  INCOME  OF  WORKING  CHILDREN 

The  217  boys  and  girls  whose  wages  were  considered  in  preced- 
ing tables  were  also  studied  from  the  standpoint  of  the  incomes  of 
the  respective  families  represented.  The  method  of  Miss  Kings- 
bury  in  grouping  the  families  was  used ;  that  of  adding  up  the 
wages  of  members  of  the  family  over  sixteen  years  old  and  any 
other  regular  means  of  support ;  deducting  the  chief  stock  expend- 
itures (such  as  rent,  carfare,  and  lunch) ;  dividing  the  resulting  sum 
by  the  number  of  members  in  the  family.  This  gives  a  rough  divi- 
sion representing  the  amount  of  money  available  for  each  person  in 
the  family  after  fixed  expenses  are  paid  :  those  families  in  which 
the  average  amount  is  $3  or  over  per  person  per  week  are  put  into 
Class  i,  those  whose  average  is  between  $3  and  $2  per  person  per 
week  are  placed  in  Class  2,  and  those  whose  average  is  less  than 
$2  are  put  into  Class  3. 

The  estimate  of  family  income  is  a  difficult  task,  as  everyone 
who  has  tried  it  knows.  The  result  of  the  estimate  was  :  37  families 
belonged  to  Class  I,  64  to  Class  2,  and  116  to  Class  3.  That  is, 
53  per  cent  belonged  to  families  of  a  very  low  economic  grade 
and  in  which,  we  may  presume,  the  wages  of  the  children  were 
absolutely  needed ;  47  per  cent  of  the  families  were  able  to  keep 
the  boys  and  girls  in  school,  judged  by  the  amount  of  money 
made  by  the  family  at  the  time  the  child  left  school. 

Of  the  217  families  represented,  1 1 8  gave  the  economic  cause 
as  determining  the  leaving  of  school.  Thirty-one  of  these  were 
found  to  be  entirely  able  to  send  their  children  to  school.  Twenty- 
nine  families,  however,  said  that  dislike  of  school,  being  14  years 
old,  etc.,  were  the  reasons,  when  further  inquiry  proved  that  the 
income  of  the  family  was  inadequate.,  That  54  per  cent  of  the 
families  gave  the  economic  cause  is- a  difference  of  result  from 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     431 


the  St.  Louis  investigation,  in  which  18  per  cent  is  the  ratio.  Miss 
Kingsbury  says  that  the  class  of  family  seems  to  have  but  little 
to  do  with  the  child's  dropping  out  of  school,  except  when  the 
grades  below  the  seventh  are  considered.1  Her  final  estimate  is 
that  76  per  cent  of  the  families  are  capable  of  giving  their  children 
industrial  education,  if  convinced  of  the  necessity.2 

It  is  apparent  that  economic  pressure  is  more  in  evidence  in  the 
stockyards  district  than  is  apparently  the  case  in  Massachusetts 
and  in  St.  Louis.  This  is  natural,  considering  the  low  grade, 
unskilled  work,  and  underemployment  of  many  of  the  men.  A 
comparison  of  the  average  family  incomes,  the  wages  of  the  heads 
of  the  families,  and  the  monthly  rents  in  the  three  groups  will 
make  the  situation  of  those  in  Class  3  plainer. 


CLASS  1 

CLASS  2 

CLASS  3 

Average  family  income      
Average  wage  of  head  

$24.31 

I4.Q2 

$15.60 
II.C2 

$9.46 
8.46 

Average  rent  

I  -I.JO 

8.56 

Average  number  in  family     .... 

6.17 

6.26 

6.50 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  figures  are  computed  on  the 
basis  of  the  actual  income  at  the  time  the  child  leaves  school  to 
search  for  work,  and  the  fathers  who  are  out  of  work  at  the  time 
the  child  stops  are  counted  as  factors  in  the  average.  In  Class  i 
most  of  the  families  are  prosperous,  some  have  steady  employment, 
and  more  than  half  own  their  homes.  The  ownership  of  homes  is 
in  itself  no  criterion  of  economic  security,  for  there  is  no  more 
hard-pressed  family  than  one  striving  to  pay  for  a  home  or 
one  subrenting  a  rundown  tenement ;  nineteen  of  those  in 
Class  3  owned  their  homes.  Nearly  half  of  the  third  group, 
also,  derived  the  whole  or  a  part  of  their  incomes  from  work  in 
the  stockyards. 

The  meager  wages  of  the  male  heads  of  families  in  this  group 
are  further  apparent  from  the  fact  that  26  of  them  received  less 
than  $6  a  week,  44  less  than  $8  a  week,  59  less  than  $10  a  week, 
and  76  less  than  $  1 2  a  week. 


1  Massachusetts  Report,  pp.  85,  86. 


2  Massachusetts  Report,  p.  92. 


432  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

It  was  thought  at  first  that  the  precarious  condition  of  Class  3 
could  be  partly  ascribed  to  the  larger  families,  but  although  there 
is  a  slight  tendency  upward  from  the  first  to  the  third  class,  the 
difference  is  so  slight  that  it  is  negligible. 

The  ever-present  danger  of  being  "  laid  off,"  the  seasons  of 
strenuous  work  followed  by  complete  idleness,  and  the  impossi- 
bility of  knowing  from  one  week  to  the  other  just  how  many  hours 
were  to  be  "  made  "  were  the  tales  told  by  scores  of  men  and 
women  ;  and  under  these  circumstances  the  temptation  to  grasp 
at  the.three  or  four  dollars  which  the  boy  or  girl  can  earn  is  almost 
irresistible.1  In  this  neighborhood,  therefore,  the  judgment  of 
Ayres,  that  "  while  pupils  who  leave  school  very  naturally  go  to 
work,  it  is  probably  comparatively  seldom  that  they  are  compelled 
to  leave  for  the  purpose  of  seeking  work,"  is  not  sustained.2 

SECTION  III.    SOME  PHASES  OF  THE  PROBLEM  OF 
VOCATIONAL  DIRECTION 

THE  FUTILITY  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  FOR  THE  FOURTEEN-TO- 
SIXTEEN- YEAR-OLD  WORKING  CHILD 

Little  service  can  be  rendered  by  the  vocational  adviser  if  chil- 
dren leave  school  before  the  age  of  sixteen  years.  Their  lack  of 
preparation  is  against  them  ;  the  jobs  available  are  inferior  and 
poorly  paid ;  the  number  of  applicants  is  legion ;  and  boys  and 
girls  are  lacking  in  judgment  and  forethought. 

Study  of  the  children  and  the  occupation  suited  to  each  of  them 
should  be  undertaken  while  they  are  under  the  supervision  of  the 
school.  When  they  become  older  they  may  gain  a  comprehen- 
sion of  themselves  and  a  sense  of  the  historical  and  social  value 
of  their  occupations.  Before  sixteen,  at  least,  the  children's 
vocation  is  to  grow. 

Difficulties  and  obstacles  are  the  theme  of  any  discussion  of 
vocational  guidance  in  the  fourteen-to-sixteen-year  period.  The 

1  The  description  of  labor  conditions  in  the  stockyards  written  by  John  R.  Commons  in 
1904  has  value  still  as  a  general  outline,  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  Vol.  XIX,  pp.  1-32. 

2  Ayres,  Laggards  in  our  Schools,  p.  100.    The  statement  is  made  in  connection  with 
a  table  giving  reasons  for  leaving  high  school,  but  it  characterizes  the  standpoint  of  the  whole 
chapter. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY      433 

obstacles  present  in  the  stockyards  district  are  to  be  viewed  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  parent,  the  child,  and  the  employer.  Why 
the  school  is  the  logical  means  of  coping  with  the  situation  will 
then  be  stated. 

/.    The  Standpoint  of  the  Parent :  Ignorance,  Cupidity,  and  Good 

Intentions 

As  a  rule  the  parent  does  not  know  his  own  child,  has  taken 
little  account  of  his  aptitudes,  and  cannot  see  the  mistake  in  ac- 
cepting a  job  paying  fair  beginning  wages  but  offering  nothing 
afterward.  Sometimes  parents  seemed  entirely  unconcerned  about 
what  happens  to  their  daughters  and  sons ;  some  were  unable  to 
tell  where  their  children  worked.  They  knew  that  it  was  down 
town,  that  there  was  a  street  car  concerned,  and  that  money  came 
in  on  Saturday  night.  This  ignorance  is  a  symptom  of  something 
besides  vague  geography.  If  the  parent  uses  the  criterion  of  money 
to  test  the  desirability  of  every  job,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  child 
adopts  it.  We  have  come  across  several  cases  in  which  the  father 
took  an  indefinite  vacation  to  celebrate  the  son's  entrance  into 
money-making.1 

The  parent  also  admires  the  "genteel  "  and  poorly  paid  "  inside 
work."  The  Lithuanian  father  is  proud  that  his  fourteen-year-old 
son  works  in  a  stockyards  office,  and  the  mother  thinks  that 
sorting  coupons  is  a  ladylike  occupation  for  her  daughter.  The 
glitter  and  cleanliness  of  the  department  store  tend  to  obscure 
its  undesirable  features  for  the  adolescent.2 

A  deplorable  condition  already  mentioned  results  from  the  will- 
ingness of  parents  to  allow  their  sons  to  leave  school  and  loaf 
around  their  groceries  or  saloons.  The  boys  are  indolently  waiting 
until  they  are  older  before  entering  upon  a  serious  program  of  life. 
The  parents  are  able  to  give  their  children  years  of  preparation, 
but  seemingly  do  not  realize  the  effect  of  this  period  of  idleness 
upon  the  child.  An  owner  of  a  cigar  factory  said  that  after  a 

1  An  example  of  irresponsible  oversight  of  youth  is  found  in  the  case  of  a  father  reeking 
with  whisky,  bewailing  the  degeneracy  of  boys  generally,  and  his  son  (who  was  denounced 
for  smoking  cigarettes)  particularly. 

2  There  were,  however,  several  expressions  of  the  undesirability  of  department-store, 
factory,  and  stockyards  jobs  from  mothers  and  fathers,  as  well  as  from  children. 


434  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

while  he  was  going  to  send  his  boy  to  "  college,"  and  a  Bohe- 
mian shoe-store-keeper  explained  that  he  was  giving  the  finishing 
touches  to  his  son's  education,  and  that  quitting  school  gave  his 
boy  more  time  to  play  the  fiddle. 

But  the  solicitude  and  desire  for  the  welfare  of  the  child  on  the 
part  of  some  of  the  parents  is  as  marked  as  their  lack  of  knowl- 
edge of  the  means  thereto.  More  than  a  half  of  the  parents  con- 
sulted were  in  favor  of  a  kind  of  school  training  leading  to  a  better 
kind  of  position  than  that  for  which  the  present  course  prepares  ; 
the  women  who  scrub  floors,  "  take  in  washing,"  and  deny  them- 
selves in  order  that  their  children  may  continue  in  school  are  evi- 
dence that  in  many  instances  the  feeling  for  better  things  needs 
but  to  be  instructed.  In  scores  of  families  the  parents  are  on  the 
lookout  for  an  opening  for  the  children,  and  deplore  the  fact  that 
the  trades  and  the  labor  unions  are  closed  to  them  because  they 
have  no  influence.1  Fathers  who  have  worked  for  years  in  the 
Yards  for  constantly  diminishing  pay  realize  the  disadvantages  of 
unskilled  labor,  and  they  desire  that  their  children  may  have  as 
few  handicaps  as  possible.  One  who  directs  the  children,  there- 
fore, has  to  fight  the  prejudice  and  ignorance  of  the  parents  and 
utilize  their  good  feelings  and  intentions. 

//.   The  Attitude  of  the  Child  to  his  Job 

(a)  Demand  for  self-expression  and  growth.  When  a  boy 
leaves  school,  tired  of  its  routine,  he  demands  novelty,  excitement, 
and  action.  He  prefers  occupations  which  afford  them.  Almost 
any  place  may  satisfy  for  a  time,  but  one  position  soon  grows 
monotonous  and  the  youth  demands  a  change.  If  the  job  fails  to 
yield  the  joy  of  being  an  "enterpriser,"  of  seeing  some  results, 
he  passes  on  to  another.  Moving  about  the  city  is  one  of  the 
attractions  of  messenger  and  errand  boy.  Boys  often  volunteer 
the  information  that  they  care  for  such  employment  because  it 
"  learns  them  something  about  the  different  parts  of  the  city."  It 

1  There  is  much  waste  in  this  regard.  Employers  have  asked  us  to  recommend  candi- 
dates, and  suitable  persons  could  not  be  found  easily.  Some  unions  are  closed  to  all  except 
relatives  of  those  in  the  trade ;  consequently  healthful  competition  for  places  is  stopped. 
There  is  no  labor  exchange  to  equalize  supply  and  demand. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     435 

is  also  true  that  there  is  more  excitement  and  a  feeling  of  a  glow- 
ing future  in  looking  for  work  than  in  actually  holding  a  tame 
job.  This  fact  should  enable  us  to  look  with  some  lenience  on 
the  frequent  quitting  of  places  for  trivial  reasons,  although  it  does 
not  do  away  with  the  pedagogical  duty  to  counsel  the  offender 
regarding  the  results  of  the  rolling  stone  and  the  rewards  of 
steady  industry.1 

(b)  Impersonal  relation  of  children  to  large  industries.  Since 
there  is  a  constant  coming  and  going  of  workers  in  most  large 
establishments,  and  since  the  personal  relation  with  the  employer 
is  often  slight,  there  is  a  great  temptation  for  the  beginner  to  feel 
that  he  does  not  "belong"  and  consequently  to  stop  work  on  the 
slightest  pretext.  One  boy  complains  that  his  boss  "  takes  his 
dinner" ;  that  is,  compels  him  to  work  during  the  noon  hour.  An 
errand  boy  states  that  he  is  not  given  enough  carfare ;  another 
stops  work  because  the  street-car  conductor  would  not  allow  him 
to  obstruct  the  passageway  with  large  bundles.  Probably  all  these 
grievances  could  have  been  adjusted,  but  the  boy  rebels  against 
the  necessary  trouble  of  bringing  the  matter  before  officials  with 
whom  there  is  not  much  acquaintance,  and  he  suddenly  quits. 
There  are  other  more  serious  causes  of  friction,  as  the  several 
instances  of  boys  under  sixteen  who  were  asked  to  work  longer 
than  the  legal  number  of  hours.  In  all  these  cases  the  child 
realizes  that  he  is  part  of  a  complex  machine  and  asserts  his 
freedom  by  leaving  it  entirely. 

The  external  and  impersonal  nature  of  the  contact  of  the  boy  with 
the  employer  is  further  shown  when  we  consider  the  uncontrolled 

1  The  discussion  of  Bray  in  his  book,  "  The  Town  Child,"  merits  the  attention  of  every 
one  interested  in  vocational  direction.  The  view  is  that  mental  and  moral  changes  are  tak- 
ing place  in  the  city  child  due  to  the  effect  of  the  street,  shallow  amusement,  diversity  and 
shifting  of  sights  and  sounds,  irregular  placing  of  buildings,  the  motiveless  coming  and 
going  of  people,  the  vicissitudes  of  employment,  and  other  urban  phenomena.  The  features 
of  the  "  city  mind  "  are  lack  of  continuity,  restlessness,  superficiality  of  thought  and  feeling, 
undue  suggestibility,  and  failure  to  appreciate  the  mystery  of  human  life  and  the  presence 
of  natural  law.  The  slowness  and  depth  of  the  rural  boy,  his  tranquillity,  sense  of  power, 
pleasure  in  the  rhythm  of  the  seasons  and  the  quiet  beauty  of  primitive  nature,  and  knowl- 
edge of  biological  sequences  ought  not  to  be  lost.  We  should  amalgamate  the  two  disposi- 
tions, giving  the  best  features  of  the  city  to  the  country  and  transferring  rural  advantages 
to  the  city. 

Some  exaggerations  of  the  "  mob  mind "  sociologists  are  evident  in  this  theory.  The 
elements  of  truth  any  observer  of  city  children  can  verify. 


436  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

way  in  which  jobs  are  secured.  Sometimes  the  finer  grade  of 
boy  makes  a  poor  appearance  when  he  looks  for  work,  alone. 
The  aggressive  boy  of  the  motor  type  is  apt  to  draw  the  attention 
of  the  man  who  hires,  and  boys  of  other  types  are  at  a  disadvan- 
tage. The  Minority  Report  of  the  English  Poor  Law  Commission 
has  made  it  plain  that  the  capacity  to  do  work  and  the  ability  to 
find  work  are  two  distinct  processes.1  The  first  job  of  the  child 
presents  an  important  crisis,  and  the  future  disposition  to  work 
and  to  shoulder  responsibility  often  depend  upon  the  degree  to 
which  the  child  responds  to  the  demands  made  upon  him  in  his 
first  position. 

Frequently  the  boy  "  happens  "  to  get  a  job  on  leaving  school, 
becomes  irritated  at  what  he  considers  the  tyranny  of  the  boss,  and 
quits,  with  the  seeds  of  the  roving  habit  thus  early  sown.  Almost 
all  of  a  group  of  boys  giving  a  great  deal  of  annoyance  to  the 
Settlement  began  their  working  careers  with  temporary  jobs  as 
messenger  boys.  The  testimony  of  the  juvenile-court  officer  in 
our  district  confirms  the  all-importance  of  "  getting  started  right." 
In  most  cases  "getting  started  right"  is  an  impossibility  for  the 
juvenile  worker.2 

(c)  Loyalty  to  family  as  a  cause  of  entering  " blind-alley"  jobs. 
A  generous  desire  to  help  their  parents  is  often  the  reason  why 
boys  accept  fairly  lucrative  "  blind-alley  "  jobs  rather  than  perma- 
nently desirable  kinds.  To  keep  the  younger  children  in  school 
and  to  pay  the  rent  is  a  pressing  need  in  comparison  with  which 
the  future  is  insignificant.  A  boy  who  had  paid  his  tuition  in  a 
business  college  left  after  a  few  weeks  of  school  to  go  to  work, 
without  the  knowledge  of  his  parents.  He  brought  his  two  weeks' 
pay  to  his  parents,  saying  that  it  was  his  duty  to  take  the  place  of 
his  father,  who  had  been  laid  off.  He  has  not  returned  to  finish 

1  Minority  Report,  Vol.  II,  pp.  169,  190-193. 

2  The  feeling  of  boys  working  in  an  establishment  toward  the  "green"  newcomer  is 
also  a  hindrance  for  the  timid  sort.   A  good  chance  of  placing  a  boy  was  spoiled  by  the 
tricks  and  jeerings  of  a  group  of  "  hazers  "  who  sent  the  applicant  from  one  part  of  the  store 
to  another  in  his  search  for  the  employer  until  he  finally  came  back  to  the  Settlement,  dis- 
gusted.   Some  employers  are  finding  out  that  there  is  need  of  leadership  and  oversight 
of  juvenile  workers,  more  than  the  busy  manager  of  departments  can  give.    Antagonism 
and  jealousy  will  crop  out,  and  children  especially  ought  to  be  guarded  from  their  hurtful 
consequences. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     437 

the  business-college  course  and  is  now  out  of  work.  Another  ex- 
ample may  be  mentioned.  A  boy  who  was  given  an  opportunity 
to  enter  a  printing  establishment,  in  which  there  is  provision 
for  going  to  school  at  the  same  time  that  a  number  of  hours  a 
week  is  spent  in  paid  work  during  the  apprenticeship  period, 
refused  to  take  the  place  because  the  beginning  wage  was  smaller 
than  that  paid  to  errand  boys.  His  family  needed  the  addi- 
tional support. 

(d)  False  estimates  of  the  desirability  and  future  of  jobs. 
(i)  Boys  :  Boys  are  not  good  critics  of  their  positions  nor  can  we 
expect  them  to  be.  After  leaving  school  many  of  them  start  in 
enthusiastically  and  continue  in  a  place  where  there  is  no  possible 
chance  of  being  assimilated.  One  bright,  industrious  boy  worked 
over  a  year  at  hard,  responsible  tasks  in  a  large  office  without 
either  friendly  encouragement  or  an  increase  in  pay,  and  he  at 
last  realized  that  his  endeavors  were  being  wasted.1  There  is  a 
general  opinion  that  opening  and  shutting  doors  is  a  good  job. 
Boys  say  they  like  their  jobs  because  they  are  easy  or  clean  or 
pay  "  good  money." 

What  occupations  are  preferred  by  boys  ?  To  determine  cus- 
tomary opinion  in  this  regard  the  children  already  at  work  and 
those  looking  for  employment  were  questioned.  In  some  instances 
but  a  short  time  had  elapsed  since  the  child  had  commenced  to 
work.  Consequently  the  period  is  not  long  enough  for  the  first 
elation  at  making  money  and  the  feeling  of  newness  to  die  out ; 
the  child's  satisfaction  may  be  momentary.  On  the  other  hand,, 
the  discontent  first  felt  may  give  way  to  liking  for  a  place. 

Half  of  the  boys  holding  messenger,  errand,  and  office  jobs  ex- 
pressed satisfaction  with  their  places,  a  ninth  were  dissatisfied,  and 
the  rest  "didn't  know,"  "never  thought  of  it,"  showing  indiffer- 
ence or  uncertainty.  In  addition  to  the  contented  ones  noted 


1  Several  boys  claim  that  it  is  the  policy  of  a  few  firms  to  hire  young  persons  for  small 
beginning  wages  under  a  pseudo-apprenticeship  arrangement.  After  a  year  or  more  of  work 
without  increase  of  pay,  they  are  discharged.  This  report  was  not  verified,  but  the  boys  are 
confident  that  they  are  unjustly  treated.  It  is  unfortunate  that  boys  sometimes  consider  the 
apprenticeship  plan  of  little  account,  and  that  employers  are  not  careful  to  avoid  an  errone- 
ous impression,  for  to  destroy  a  boy's  faith  in  the  rewards  of  steady  industry  at  a  time  when 
dreams  of  future  excellence  and  responsibility  are  natural  is  more  than  stupidity. 


438  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

above,  the  occupations  for  which  decided  satisfaction  was  shown 
were  as  follows  : 

NUMBER  OF  BOYS  SATISFIED  JOBS 

WITH  JOBS 

ii Factory 

6 Apprentices  in  printing  firms 

4 Helpers  in  grocery,  bakery,  etc. 

3 Wagon  boys 

1  each  of    ....  Farm,     buying     cattle,    baker,     tailor, 

painter,  druggist,  plumber,  and  jeweler 
positions 

This  question  was  put  to  boys  out  of  work  :  What  kind  of  job 

do  you  want  ? 

• 

NUMBER  OF  BOYS  JOBS 

9 Errand  or  messenger 

7 "  Some  trade  " 

3 "  Machine  shop  " 

2  each  of    ....  Bookkeeper,   farm,   elevator  boy,   and 

cracker  factory 

i  each  of  ....  Running  auto,  navy,  electrician,  draw- 
ing, butcher,  office  work,  telegrapher, 
engineer,  plumber,  "  business,"  driver, 
and  "  inside  job  " 

For  examples  of  the  differences  between  the  job  held  and  the 
job  wished  for,  we  may  cite  a  wagon  boy  who  is  ambitious  to 
become  a  teacher,  a  factory  boy  who  looks  for  a  place  involving 
drawing,  a  cash  boy  who  seeks  to  be  a  carpenter,  a  "  tagger  "  at 
Armour's  packing  plant  who  aims  to  be  an  electrician,  a  messenger 
boy  who  wants  a  place  where  he  can  "  work  with  his  hands." 

The  opinions  which  boys  venture  are  reflections  of  immature 
judgment  and  a  narrow  field  of  choice.  As  children  grow  older, 
restlessness  and  friction  are  apt  to  intensify  and  become  articulate ; 
some  of  the  older  boys  expressing  dissatisfaction  were  hostile  to 
any  work  except  the  easiest  and  best  paid.  Somewhat  less  than 
one  fourth  of  the  boys  were  discontented,  a  fourth  were  without 
an  opinion,  and  a  half  were  satisfied. 

Mr.  Ristine  found  a  similar  incapacity  to  analyze  the  relative 
advantages  of  positions  among  older  boys.  Dissatisfaction  was 
more  general,  outside  of  those  in  desirable  trades.  He  estimates 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     439 

that  60  per  cent  of  the  350  cases  wanted  "  trade  or  business  train- 
ing." This  is  not  true  of  the  children  of  this  district ;  as  a  rule, 
they  do  not  know  clearly  what  they  want  or  what  is  best  for  them. 
This  does  not  gloss  the  undefined  discontent,  the  occasional  vivid 
perception  by  them  of  their  unused  capacities,  and  the  necessity 
of  studying  and  supervising  their  careers.1 

(e)  False  estimates  of  the  desirability  and  future  of  jobs. 
(2)  Girls  :  Like  *the  boys  and  the  parents,  the  girls  are  often 
too  optimistic  of  the  future,  saying,  "I'll  get  a  fine  job  after  a 
while."  They  refuse  chances  to  learn  millinery  and  dressmaking 
on  account  of  the  smaller  wage,  and  because  they  think  that  they 
will  be  discharged  after  the  apprenticeship  is  over.2  There  is  less 
roving  and  chafing  under  the  burden  of  uncongenial  jobs.  In  some 
girls  the  habit  of  obedience  is  so  strong  that  they  will  do  un- 
reasonable "  extras  "  for  the  employer,  such  as  scrubbing  out  a 
factory  at  the  end  of  the  Saturday's  work,  and  unscrupulous  em- 
ployers can  make  the  most  of  this  attitude  on  the  part  of  both 
boys  and  girls.  A  grievance  of  one  girl  was  that  her  employer 
kept  all  the  girls  of  a  large  factory  working  on  Christmas  Day. 

On  the  whole,  there  is  less  discontent  among  the  girls.  Ten 
only  of  those  employed  were  decided  in  their  distaste  for  their 
work,  the  jobs  held  being  garment,  millinery,  office,  and  factory 
work.  It  is  significant  that  twenty-eight  girls  in  candy,  box,  and 
net  factories  said  that  they  had  good  places  and  wished  no  change. 
The  other  occupations  considered  satisfactory,  in  the  order  of  num- 
ber of  cases,  were  department  store,  office,  housework,  tailors' 
apprentices,  dressmaking,  bindery  work,  and  millinery.  Of  those 
not  working  when  interviewed,  the  preferences  were  for  sewing, 
factory,  housework,  office  employment,  and  stenography.  One  fifth 
of  the  entire  number  were  uncertain. 

Several  girls,  after  trying  a  few  jobs,  went  back  to  school, 
and  one  was  found  who  planned  to  take  a  $25  course  in  a  private 

1  Cf.  Ristine,  op.  cit.,  pp.  44  ff. 

2  A  milliner  of  the  neighborhood  alleges  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  obtain  a  sufficient 
number  of  apprentices  for  her  business,  although  the  prospects  held  out  to  them  are  brighter 
than  the  futures  of  most  occupations  open  to  fourteen-year-old  girls.    A  few  girls  see  in 
housework  superior  educative  advantages,  but  many  prefer  the  excitement,  sociability,  and 
regular  hours  of  the  factory  or  department  store.   The  local  stores  because  of  this  can  hire 
girls  of  the  neighborhood  for  #1.75  per  week. 


440  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

dressmaking  school ;  but  generally  there  is  little  patronage  of  the 
commercial  institutions  in  which  garment  making,  hairdressing, 
and  the  finer  arts  are  taught. 

The  conclusion  is  that  working  boys  and  girls  are  immature  in 
judgment  of  their  jobs,  can  therefore  be  exploited  by  employers, 
and  that  vocational  oversight  can  do  little  positive  service  in  the 
adolescent  period  once  the  child  has  entered  industry.  The  chil- 
dren should  be  in  school,  and  the  study  of  the  cBild  and  the  future 
occupation  should  be  made  by  the  vocational  adviser  while  the 

adolescent  is  securing  training  in  the  school. 

• 

///.  Attittide  of  the  Employer :  Inefficiency  of  Juvenile  Labor 

Many  employers  question  the  utility  of  juvenile  labor.  Some 
of  the  packing  establishments  dislike  to  hire  boys  under  sixteen 
years  of  age.  This  is  partly  due  to  the  advantage  of  the  longer 
hours  of  the  older  boys,  partly  to  a  pronounced  dissatisfaction  with 
the  bother  of  training  the  irresponsible  children.  The  criticism  of 
the  employer  is  that  the  boys  are  impolite,  mischievous,  do  not 
apply  themselves,  are  not  ambitious,  and  cannot  be  depended  upon. 
One  employer  in  the  general  office  of  a  packing  house  said  that 
more  "  mental  "  schooling  and  a  "  code  of  ethics  "  were  necessary; 
another  believed  that  the  "  quality  of  boy  "  is  much  inferior  to  that 
of  the  old  days ;  he  complained  that  40  per  cent  of  the  boys  em- 
ployed during  the  year  either  left  or  did  not  advance.1  He  pre- 
ferred eighth-grade  or  high-school  boys.  Another  employer  of  a 
large  number  of  boys  in  one  of  the  general  offices  of  the  stock- 
yards declared  that  he  advises  every  boy  who  applies  for  work  to 
go  back  to  school.  The  head  of  another  employment  department 
said  that  "foreign  boys"  are  unclean  and  rowdy,  and  recited  the 

1  According  to  the  estimate  of  a  man  who  employs  boys  in  one  of  the  packing  establish- 
ments, there  are  over  three  hundred  fifty  boys  under  sixteen  employed  in  errand  running 
and  clerical  work  in  the  Yards.  The  annual  shifting  is  therefore  considerable.  Some  of  the 
failure  to  be  assimilated  is  to  be  ascribed  to  childish  instability,  some  to  the  fact  that  the 
undersized  boys  are  not  likely  to  be  selected  for  the  work  outside  the  office,  much  of  which 
requires  endurance  and  weight.  Another  obvious  reason  is  that  the  defective  training  of 
the  boys  does  not  fit  many  of  them  to  take  managerial  positions. 

According  to  the  testimony  of  an  executive  in  a  mail-order  firm  employing  many  boys, 
the  average  "  life  "  of  a  boy  is  one  year.  That  means  a  replenishing  of  the  entire  juvenile 
force  each  year.  This  executive  also  said  that  his  business  and  all  industries  could  be 
adjusted  to  the  sixteen-year  school  minimum. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     441 

story  of  an  errand  boy  who  on  being  sent  to  a  prominent  official 
with  a  message,  began  his  speech  with  "  Say,  that  there  guy  down 
below.  ..."  What  he  demanded  of  boys  was  "  not  so  much  book 
knowledge  as  gumption."  A  printing-concern  manager  said  that 
only  one  out  of  twelve  boys  sticks  to  his  job,  and  that  they  want 
an  immediate  "  raise  "  and  the  highest  pay  for  the  easiest  work. 

Several  employers  in  the  offices  of  the  stockyards  said  that 
under  existing  conditions  it  is  better  to  take  boys  of  fourteen  or 
even  younger  and  train  them  for  their  business.  Boys  fresh  from 
elementary  school  are  more  docile  and  less  "  smart-Alecky  "  than 
the  older  boys,  and  the  commercial  training  in  the  schools  is  not 
practical,  according  to  their  opinion.  An  owner  of  a  box  factory 
declared  that  he  was  in  favor  of  industrial  education,  but  that  the 
competitive  state  of  the  industry  was  such  that  the  cheap,  mechani- 
cal tending  of  the  machine  was  necessary,  and  that  only  those  who 
start  in  before  they  are  sixteen  learn  and  stay  with  the  business. 

What  are  qualities  which  employers  demand  of  boys  and  girls  ? 
The  following  personal  answers  of  employers  will  suggest  the  situ- 
ation. The  requisite*  qualities  for  employees  in  department  stores 
are  said  to  be  "  neatness,  quickness,  and  loyalty  "  ;  they  must  also 
be  good  "talkers."  Employees  in  candy  and  box  factories  are 
asked  to  be  "  bright "  and  have  "  quick  fingers."  Errand  boys 
must  be  "  polite,  obedient,  resourceful,  neat,  and  clean."  Office 
boys  must  "write  a  good  hand,  take  an  interest,  be  steady,  and 
look  for  advancement." 

It  is  plain  that  there  are  two  tendencies  struggling  for  suprem- 
acy :  one  is  to  consider  the  fourteen-year-old  child  undesirable 
material  for  industry,  both  in  education  and  mental  characteristics ; 
the  other  is  a  disposition  to  utilize  him  in  the  interests  of  a  special- 
ized business,  on  the  theory  that  the  training  thus  early  secured 
is  beneficial  and  a  road  to  advancement.  The  latter  view  is  being 
abandoned  in  all  industries  except  those  to  be  classed  as  parasitic. 

A  word  may  be  added  about  the  employer's  relation  to  girl  labor. 
The  testimony  of  the  president  of  one  of  the  box  factories  is  inter- 
esting because  the  box  industry  is  a  low-grade  avenue  of  employment 
for  a  number  of  girls  in  our  neighborhood.  This  employer  says 
that  industrial  education  would  not  help  him  in  the  least,  since  the 


442  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

shortening  of  hours  and  the  increase  of  age  limit  are  forcing  him 
to  introduce  machinery  to  counteract  the  advancing  cost  of  help. 
This  means  that  less  intelligence  is  constantly  being  required.  He 
states  that  his  attitude  to  his  employees  is  a  commercial  one,  and 
that  "  sociological  workers  "  fail  to  appreciate  the  employer's  side 
of  the  problem.  The  necessity  of  hiring  girls  under  sixteen  comes 
from  the  fact  that  he  finds  it  impossible  to  get  permanent  workers 
unless  he  can  train  the  younger  girls  in  his  factory,  since  only 
20  per  cent  of  the  girls  over  sixteen  when  they  begin  to  work 
remain  more  than  two  weeks.  Girls  who  have  worked  from  four- 
teen to  sixteen  "  like  the  place,"  are  capable,  and  "stickers"  when 
put  on  machines.1 

The  women  who  employ  young  girls  to  do  "  housework  "  or 
to  care  for  children  complicate  the  matter.  Several  times  it  has 
happened  that  well-disposed  girls  refuse  to  work  longer  than  a  few 
weeks  for  the  women  employers.  The  girls  say  they  are  not  fairly 
treated  and  that  more  and  more  work  is  constantly  thrust  upon 
them,  so  that  they  finally  were  performing  in  an  efficient  manner 
the  full  duties  of  a  domestic  servant,  and  for  a  small  weekly  sum. 
Certainly  this  is  only  a  phase  of  the  wider  domestic-servant  prob- 
lem ;  and  the  old  argument  that  the  women  use,  that  they  are 
"  taking  the  girl  into  their  home  "  and  teaching  her  a  fine  art, 
does  not  remove  the  narrow  and  undemocratic  character  of  the 
relationship.2  The  girls,  under  these  conditions,  dislike  the  care 
of  the  house  and  prefer  the  definite  duties  of  the  factory.  In 
either  housework  or  factory  employment  of  the  type  represented 
by  the  box  industry  there  is  an  undoubted  absence  of  stimulus  and 
opportunity  for  promotion,  and  the  employer  does  not  deny  the  fact. 

IV.   The  School  and  Vocational  Direction 

The  one  point  to  be  insisted  upon  here  is  that  the  institution 
upon  which  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  vocational  guidance 
logically  rests  is  the  public  school.  Private  organizations  may 

1  Webb,  Industrial  Democracy,  Vol.  II,  pp.  749-766,  deals  with  "parasitic"  industries; 
that  is,  those  which  cannot  afford  to  pay  a  living  wage..  Cf.  Florence  Kelley,  "  Minimum- 
Wage   Boards,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  November,  1911,  for  the  attitude  of  the 
Consumers'  League  to  underpaid  occupations. 

2  Cf.  Dean,  The  Worker  and  the  State,  chap.  iii. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     443 

demonstrate  the  feasibility  and  helpfulness  of  limited  experiments 
in  this  movement,  and  they  may  cooperate  at  all  times,  but  their 
experiments  are  preparatory  to  state  or  municipal  management  as 
a  part  of  the  public-school  system.  The  state  employment  agencies 
now  undertake  only  a  relatively  slight  control  of  the  immediate 
stress  of  employment,  and  they  have  had  small  success  because  of 
a  lack  of  thoroughness,  perspective,  and  the  social  attitude  which 
the  public  school  possesses. 

The  school  is  already  organized  and  recognized ;  its  time-honored 
function  —  preparation  for  life  —  is  preserved  by  the  more  system- 
atic method  of  adjusting  the  child  to  his  work  which  has  been 
developed  in  Boston  by  Professor  Parsons  and  Mr.  Bloomfield. 
The  school  already  connects  with  the  legal  machinery  of  the  state, 
with  the  family,  and  to  some  extent  with  the  professions  and  the 
humbler  occupations.  The  present  problem  is  to  enlarge  the  scope 
of  education  so  as  to  include  the  store,  the  factory,  the  office,  and 
the  shop  in  the  circle  of  reputable  and  dignified  social  agencies.1 

Vocational  guidance  will  stimulate  needed  changes  in  the  school 
curriculum.  The  responsibility  of  taking  care  of  the  child,  of  con- 
necting him  with  the  economic  world,  will  contribute  toward  a 
change  in  the  method  of  instruction  in  the  public  schools.  There 
is  a  close  relationship  between  vocational  education  and  vocational 
guidance.  Each  should  work  with  the  other,  the  economic  world 
affecting  the  school  curriculum,  and  the  methods  and  aims  of  the 
school  refining  the  methods  and  aims  of  industry. 

The  introduction  of  vocational  guidance  as  an  integral  part  of 
the  school  administration  would  go  far  toward  increasing  the  dig- 
nity and  efficiency  of  "  business  "  in  all  its  forms.  To  look  upon 
education  as  "  the  method  of  democracy  "  and  to  extend  its  scope 
in  the  way  contemplated  by  a  vocational-guidance  program,  it  is 

1  Marshall  Field's  department  store  is  now  making  provision  for  definite  instruction  of 
the  women  employees  in  the  art  of  sales-making.  The  history  and  process  of  manufacture 
of  the  articles  sold  are  presented  by  the  most  competent  persons  in  each  department.  This 
experiment,  ably  conducted  by  Miss  Collins,  has  undoubtedly  helped  to  add  dignity  and 
significance  to  commercial  transactions.  In  New  England  cities  a  further  step  has  been 
taken  —  that  of  cooperation  between  school  and  store  —  so  that  children  still  in  school  may 
devote  part  time  to  study  and  practice  in  this  field  of  employment.  Cf.  Bulletin  No.  13, 
Part  I,  pp.  6- 1 6,  issued  by  the  National  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education  ; 
Dean,  The  Worker  and  the  State,  chap.  vii. 


444  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

necessary  to  view  industry  as  more  than  a  money-making  process, 
and  to  demand  a  social  attitude  which  neither  the  public  nor 
the  employer  has  hitherto  exhibited.  It  implies  a  reversal  of  the 
individualistic  notion  of  allowing  free  swing  to  the  thousands  of 
children  competing  for  jobs  and  to  short-sighted  employers  who 
are  willing  to  profit  by  juvenile  labor.  The  admirable  character  of 
much  German  instruction,  it  is  true,  implies  military  and  feudal 
stratification  of  classes,  but  Germany  has  embodied  an  idea  which, 
in  some  form,  must  be  realized  in  America  —  the  idea  that  the 
occupation  is  the  root  of  civic  virtues,  that  the  employer  is  an 
agent  of  the  community,  and  that  all  citizens  must  be  given 
facilities  to  learn  a  useful  occupation  and  be  helped  to  find  a 
steady  place.1 

Since  the  school  aims  to  be  a  world  in  miniature,  with  the  same 
problems  and  activities  there  as  are  found  in  the  larger  world ; 
since  the  school  is  a  converging  point  of  child,  home,  government, 
and  industry,  it  is  most  fitted  to  cope  with  the  task  of  guiding  the 
boy  and  girl  to  the  appropriate  occupation.  Through  its  reorgani- 
zation of  the  curriculum,  through  its  influence  upon  the  parent, 
and  through  the  demands  it  makes  upon  industry,  legal  standards, 
and  public  sentiment,  it  can  accomplish  what  no  other  institution 
is  qualified  to  attempt. 

SECTION  IV.    SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION;    LINES 
OF  BETTERMENT 

SUMMARY 

The  leading  items  intended  to  be  emphasized  in  the  foregoing 
discussion  are  : 

1.  The  district  studied  is  peopled  by  immigrants  of  various 
races ;  their  work  is  unskilled,  and  their  main  source  of  employ- 
ment is  the  stockyards. 

2.  The  testimony  of  principal,  teacher,  child,  and  parent  unites 
in  the  conclusion  that  the  public  school  is  not  meeting  the  needs 
of  adolescence  and  adjusting  the  child  to  his  future  work. 

1  Cf.  Draper,  Our  Children,  Our  Schools,  and  Our  Industries,  p.  15  ;  Snowden,  Industrial 
Improvement  Schools  of  Wiirttemberg ;  Kerschensteiner,  The  Education  of  German  Youth 
for  Citizenship,  chap.  iv. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     445 

3.  The  great  exodus  from  school  comes  before  the  seventh 
grade  and  shortly  after  the  child  reaches  the  age  of  fourteen. 

4.  The  ignorance  of  parents,  the  willingness  of  children,  and 
the  pressure  of  straitened  circumstances  combine  in  forcing  boys 
and  girls  to  leave  school  for  work  as  soon  as  the  law  will  permit  it. 

5.  Few  children  from  the  neighborhood  go  to  high  school, 
trade  school,  or  keep  up  any  form  of  educational  interest  after 
leaving  school. 

6.  Yet  the  boys  and  girls  have  talents  and  abilities  in  special 
directions. 

7.  The  occupations  entered  are  easily  learned,  mechanical,  and 
devoid  of  educational  value. 

8.  The  kind  of  jobs  secured  is  much  a  matter  of  chance ;  the 
migration  from  place  to  place  does  not  lead  to  better  opportunities ; 
the  pay  is  small ;  and  the  net  result  is  instability  of  character. 

9.  A  number  of  "subnormal"  boys  are  as  successful  in  industry 
as  many  "  normal  "  boys. 

10.  There  is  no  marked  economic  advantage  to  be  gained  by  a 
longer  stay  in  school ;  before  the  age  of  sixteen  preparation  in 
school  does  not  count,  considering  the  ordinary  run  of  mechanical 
occupations  open  to  children. 

1 1 .  Over  half  of  the  families  from  which  the  working  children 
come  have  such  a  low  income  that  the  wages  of  the  boy  and  girl 
are  judged  necessary. 

12.  The  experience  of  older  boys  and  girls  shows  a  small  aver- 
age contribution  to  the  family  income,  a  short  average  time  in 
each  position,  and  a  long  average  period  of  idleness.   All  of  these 
persons  stopped  school  during  the  fourteen-to-sixteen-year  period. 

13.  Aside  from  parasitic  industries,  there  is  no  economic  neces- 
sity for  juvenile  labor,  according  to  the  testimony  of  employers. 

14.  The  public  school  is  best  adapted  to  deal  with  the  problem 
of  vocational  direction. 

WHAT  SHOULD  BE  DONE? 

There  are  three  directions  of  betterment.  The  first  is  to  improve 
the  organization  and  scope  of  the  school.  The  second  is  to  in- 
crease the  Incomes  of  the  families,  so  as  to  make  school  attendance 
possible.  The  third  is  to  institute  a  vocational-guidance  program. 


446  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

/.  Reorganization  of  the  School 

(a)  Raising  the  minimum  school  age.    The  least  thing  that  one 
may  ask  is  that  the  school  be  made  attractive  and  profitable  for 
the.  sixth-  and  seventh-grade  children  before  they  leave  school,  even 
if  we  accept  present  conditions  and  a  fourteen-year-minimum  school 
age.    If  industry  entails  a  sacrifice  of  children,  society  should  bear 
the  burden  of  giving  them  a  generous  training  preparatory  to  their 
entrance  into  uneducational  employments,  a  training  appealing  to 
constructive  powers  and  imagination.    But  moral  perception  has 
reached  a  point  where  it  demands  a  higher  standard  than  the  one 
at  present  set.  The  fixing  of  the  compulsory  school-attendance  law 
at  a  sixteen-year  minimum  seems  essential  and  introductory  to  all 
other  devices  for  betterment.    Especially  in  a  community  like  the 
stockyards  in  which  custom  and  habit  are  dominant,  a  legal  stand- 
ard is  quickly  conformed  to  by  the  people.    Such  a  standard  also 
registers  the  conviction  of  those  who  believe  that  the  school  can 
adjust  the  new  generation  to  a  changing  social  order  most  quickly 
and  economically.   If,  as  has  been  shown,  the  period  between  four- 
teen and  sixteen  is  an  economic  and  moral  waste  and  if,  as  psychol- 
ogy asserts,  the  mind  and  body  of  the  adolescent  are  injured  by 
fatigue  due  to  mechanical  occupations,  it  is  foolish  to  refuse  to 
extend  the  period  of  responsibility  to  the  sixteen-year  minimum. 
The  superior  standard  has  a  further  advantage  ;  it  will  hasten  the 
reorganization  of  the  existing  school  system  and  stimulate  inquiry 
into  causes  which  limit  the  success  of  the  school. 

(b)  Provision  for  continuation  instruction.  Those  already  at  work 
and  those  who  leave  school  on  reaching  the  age  of  sixteen  should 
be  provided  for.  The  existing  night  schools  in  the  local  elementary 
schools  are  good,  but  they  are  dominated  by  bookish,  academic 
traditions.    They  must  be  also  practical,  definite,  informal,  with 
shop  and  laboratory  atmosphere,  if  they  are  to  draw  the  children. 

Arrangements  with  employers  so  that  a  number  of  hours  could 
be  spent  in  school  during  the  daytime  would  be  desirable.  In  this 
matter  we  have  the  experience  of  Munich  for  suggestion.1 

1  Kerschensteiner,  The  Education  of  German  Youth  for  Citizenship,  and  Lectures  on 
Industrial  Education  (Commercial  Club  of  Chicago) ;  Hanus,  Beginnings  in  Industrial 
Education,  chap.  v. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY     447 

There  should  be  opportunities  in  continuation  work:  (i)  for  a 
boy  leaving  school  to  review  and  extend  his  knowledge  along  the 
regular  existing  lines  of  day  instruction,  so  that  he  may  be  gradu- 
ated and  attend  high  school  if  he  desires ;  (2)  for  a  factory  or 
department-store  child  to  study  a  trade,  as  carpentry  or  millinery ; 
and  (3)  for  a  boy  engaged,  for  example,  in  printing,  to  get  a  rounded 
and  generous  background  at  school  for  his  daily  specialized  work. 

An  indispensable  condition  of  discovering  talents  and  furnish- 
ing guidance  is  that  young  persons  between  fourteen  and  seven- 
teen be  kept  under  systematic  discipline.1  Such  training  should 
have  an  immediate  appeal.  To  repeat,  the  reasons  for  the  demand 
to  extend  the  period  of  preparation  and  to  alter  its  character  are : 
(i)  the  present-day  schools  do  not  attract  and  meet  the  needs  of 
all  types  of  children ;  (2)  occupational  training  is  not  given  in  suf- 
ficient degree  in  the  evening  classes  of  the  public  schools  ;  (3)  after 
the  child  leaves  school  the  character  of  his  work  and  associations 
tends  to  lessen  interest  in  all  forms  of  "  education."  In  addition 
to  these  practical,  near-at-hand  considerations,  there  is  the  argu- 
ment which  Dr.  Kerschensteiner  urges,  that  without  such  atten- 
tion to  youth  the  civic  welfare  of  the  whole  community,  including 
the  employer,  is  threatened.2 

(c)  The  reorganization  of  the  day  school.  With  a  sixteen-year 
minimum  the  school  will  have  a  fair  chance.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  repeat  the  details  urged  by  the  exponents  of  industrial  education. 
A  starting  point  already  exists  in  the  local  schools  —  the  provisions 
for  the  backward,  subnormal  child,  and  the  manual-training  and 
domestic-science  instruction.3 

These  are  successful,  interesting  to  the  child,  and  demand  exten- 
sion. The  reorganization  of  the  spirit  and  methods  of  the  school 
so  as  to  center  about  occupational  and  concrete  problems  and  proc- 
esses will  proceed  from  such  extension.  Considering  the  fact 
that  the  amount  of  "  culture,"  information,  and  lasting  interests 

1  The  Ohio  law  gives  a  municipality  the  right  to  compel  the  sending  of  children  to 
school  in  continuation  classes  until  they  are  seventeen  years  of  age. 

2  Ketcham,  The  Need  of  Industrial  Education  from  the  Manufacturer's  Point  of  View 
(Winona  Technical  Institute  School  of  Printing,  Indianapolis). 

8  Principal  Hill  of  the  Seward  School  says  that  the  best  woodwork  he  has  ever  seen  was 
turned  out  by  his  students  last  year,  and  the  success  of  the  domestic-science  instruction  in 
the  Hamline  School  is  equally  decided. 


448  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

attained  by  the  children  is  not  now  alarmingly  great,  there  is  no 
danger  of  sacrificing  literary  and  cultural  accomplishments  if  the 
school  becomes  more  of  a  laboratory  and  workshop  than  a  place 
of  recitation.  One  can  assume  that  the  doctrine  of  "  formal  dis- 
cipline "  to  be  obtained  exclusively  by  a  selected  group  of  subjects 
is  a  relic  of  medievalism.  Whatever  devices 1  of  flexible  articu- 
lating courses,  relative  time  given  to  vocational  and  nonvocational 
subjects,  etc.,  may  be  found  feasible,  it  is  absolutely  essential  that 
the  occupations  having  to  do  with  the  home  and  the  basic  industries 
should  have  a  prominent  place.2 

The  domestic  arts,  designing,  decorating,  work  in  wood  and 
metal,  the  elements  of  industrial  history,  civics,  geography,  and 
the  sciences  which  are  involved  in  solving  practical  problems  of 
construction  and  understanding  the  evolution  of  society  should  be 
preparatory  to  a  possible  further  specialization  in  one  of  the  trades, 
and  it  may  be  added  that  they  are  valuable  and  "  cultural  "  on 
their  own  account  in  any  future  profession  or  job.  The  reported 
success  of  the  schools  of  Gary,  Indiana,  in  revolving  the  curric- 
ulum around  the  neighborhood  occupations,  and  the  introduction 
into  the  schools  of  Albany,  New  York,  of  definite  pieces  of  work 
in  sewing  and  mending  sent  in  by  the  residents  of  the  town,  are 
anticipations  of  what  may  be  worked  out  to  suit  local  conditions. 
For  a  further  example  of  what  may  be  included  in  elementary 
instruction,  the  rich  program  of  a  leading  vocational  school  is 
cited.  The  list  comprises  woodwork  in  its  various  forms  of  car- 
pentry, cabinetmaking,  turning,  use  of  milling  machinery ;  metal 
work  —  shop  practice,  forging,  plumbing,  and  electric  wiring ; 
printing,  bookbinding ;  drawing,  —  mechanical,  free-hand,  —  indus- 
trial design,  and  making  of  blue  prints ;  trade  mathematics,  business 
letters,  commercial  law,  geography,  composition,  applied  physics 
and  chemistry,  and  industrial  history. 

1  These  points  are  handled  in  the  forthcoming  report  of  Mr.  Ernest  Wreidt  to  the  City 
Club  of  Chicago. 

2  Training  in  the  domestic  arts  is  essential  for  all  girls.   A  girl  may  be  married  or  "  keep 
house  "  for  relatives,  or  she  may  work  at  a  trade  or  in  a  factory  where  the  machine  repro- 
duces the  household  processes  on  a  large  scale.    In  any  case  she  needs  skill  and  knowledge. 
The  domestic  occupations,  psychologically,  were  the  chief  means  by  which  primitive  woman 
developed  intelligence,  and  they  are  still  fundamental,  pedagogically.    On  this  matter  the 
argument  has  been  put  by  Dewey,  The  School  and  Society.  Cf.  Dopp,  The  Place  of  Indus- 
tries in  Elementary  Education;  Mason,  Woman's  Share  in  Primitive  Industry. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY      449 

Description  of  vocational  schools  for  girls,  such  as  the  Albany 
Vocational  School  and  the  Manhattan  Trade  School,  must  be 
omitted.  The  new  Lucy  L.  Flower  Technical  High  School  estab- 
lished this  year  in  Chicago  is  also  illustrative  of  what  will  come, 
not  only  in  the  technical  high  schools  but  also  in  the  elementary 
schools. 

This  vocational  instruction  is  not  narrow  and  "  utilitarian."  It 
has  the  merit  of  giving  a  sense  of  achievement,  responsibility, 
and  the  power  of  adaptation.  If  introduced  it  would  keep  a  larger 
number  in  school,  and  the  increased  skill  and  efficiency  would 
very  likely  tend  to  raise  the  economic  grade  of  the  future  families 
of  those  children  who  receive  the  training.  At  all  events,  so 
much  anxiety,  solicitude,  and  money  have  been  directed  toward 
the  well-being  of  those  who  are  able  to  pass  on  to  the  high  school, 
technical  schools,  and  the  university  that  it  is  simple  justice  to 
provide  for  the  less  favored  ones  who  are  of  some  importance  in 
contributing  to  the  wealth  of  society.1 

//.    An  Economic  Aspect  of  Juvenile  Labor 

Miss  Kingsbury  found  in  Massachusetts  that  twenty-four  chil- 
dren out  of  each  one  hundred  left  school  because  of  economic 
necessity ;  in  the  stockyards  district  5  3  per  cent  of  the  number  of 
families  studied  were  in  poverty.  The  stress  of  faulty  preparation 
for  civic  life  and  irregular,  underpaid  labor  now  falls  upon  the 
boys,  girls,  and  men  of  this  neighborhood,  most  of  whom  are  at 
present  destined  to  mechanical,  unskilled  occupations. 

It  must  be  asserted  that  a  sixteen-year-minimum  school  age 
and  provisions  for  occupational  instruction  are  not  sufficient  reme- 
dies for  the  conditions  under  which  the  immigrants  in  the  stock- 
yards live.  Too  much  emphasis  cannot  be  placed  upon  the  factor 
of  low  family  income.2  In  some  way,  whether  by  following  the 
example  of  England  in  selecting  several  unskilled  occupations  and 

1  Cf.  Person,  Industrial  Education,  pp.  57-58.  On  other  points  treated  cf.  Snedden,  The 
Problem  of  Vocational  Education,  especially  pp.  32,  71  ff. 

2  Under  probable  conditions  in  the  near  future  it  is  not  at  all  certain  that  the  elimina- 
tion, through  legislation,  of  all  juvenile  labor  before  the  age  of  sixteen  would  result  in  an 
increased  wage  to  adult  workers  in  unskilled  industries,  if  the  regulation  is  left  to  the  auto- 
matic action  of  competition,  and  if  the  supply  of  immigrant  labor  is  not  curtailed.    As  urged 
above,  it  is  safer  to  accept  the  fact  that  a  large  number  of  young  persons  are  bound  to  pursue 


450  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

prescribing  a  minimum  wage  standard,  or  by  other  intelligent 
means  of  regulating  competition  and  free  initiative,  wages  of  un- 
skilled labor  must  be  raised  to  correspond  with  the  higher  stand- 
ard set  for  the  education  of  children.  All  observant  and  humane 
writers  deplore  the  universally  precarious  state  of  the  unskilled 
laborer.1  Social  legislation  to  remedy  this  grave  state  of  affairs  is 
an  experiment  worth  trying. 

///.    The  Method  of  Vocational  Direction 

The  contention  is  that  few  occupations,  and  these  mostly  unde- 
sirable, can  be  entered  by  the  child  before  he  is  sixteen  years  old. 
At  sixteen  he  is  presumed  to  be  better  prepared  by  school  disci- 
pline, more  stable,  and  more  positions  are  available.  During  the 
fourteen-to-sixteen-year  period  in  school  the  skill  of  the  voca- 
tional director  is  most  valuable,  for  this  period  is  the  seedtime  of 
possibilities.  There  should  then  be  the  closest  study  of  the  children, 
the  parents,  and  the  fields  of  employment. 

INADEQUACY  OF  PRIVATE  EMPLOYMENT  AGENCIES 

Private  employment  agencies  are  purely  for  the  purpose  of 
placing  persons  who  will  pay  a  fee.  They  do  not  study  each  candi- 
date adequately  ;  their  snapshot  and  commercial  character  renders 
them  unfit  for  more  than  an  immediate  means  of  securing  work.2 

nonstimulating  employments,  that  unskilled  adult  labor,  subject  to  seasonal  demand,  is  re- 
quired by  our  methods  of  production.  It  is  therefore  doubly  necessary  (i)  to  give  broad 
social  perspective  to  the  rising  generation,  in  order  to  counteract  the  narrow  specialized 
machine  processes ;  (z)  to  give  generous  pay  and  protection  against  unemployment  to  those 
engaged  in  undesirable  occupations. 

The  assumption  of  many  educators  that  vocational  training  will  inevitably  lead  to  higher 
wages  for  all  is  not  warranted.  It  will  tend  to  a  richer  social  existence  and  more  pay  to 
some ;  for  the  thousands  of  men  and  women  who  must  continue  in  low-grade  industries  there 
must  be  means  of  giving  protection,  security,  and  a  decent  wage. 

1  Cf.  Hobson's  article  on  "  Science  and  Industry  "  in  the  volume  entitled  Science  in  Pub- 
lic Affairs,  especially  p.  204.    Fetter  admits  that  "the  low  income  of  unskilled  labor  seems 
to  fall  short  of  its  social  service"  (Principles  of  Economics,  p.  379).   Webb,  English  Poor 
Law  Policy,  pp.  300-306,  states  the  preventive  policies,  including  the  regulation  of  unemploy- 
ment and  "  underemployment,"  which  are  advocated  by  the  authors  of  the  Minority  Report 
of  the  Poor  Law  Commission  ;  chaps,  iv  and  v  of  the  second  volume  of  the  Minority  Report, 
The  Public  Organization  of  the  Labour  Market,  are  fundamental. 

2  Grace  Abbott,  "  The  Chicago  Employment  Agency  and   the    Immigrant  Worker," 
American  Journal  of  Sociology,  November,  1908  ;  cf.  the  excellent  description  of  German  and 
English  labor  exchanges,  and  "  Recommendations  for  a  National  Regulation  of  Unemploy- 
ment "  in  the  Minority  Report  of  the  Poor  Law  Commission,  chap.  v. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY      451 

The  municipal  and  state  agencies  are  more  successful  in  hand- 
ling a  relatively  few  grades  of  work  in  the  case  of  older  men  and 
women.  The  efficiency  of  private  benevolent  organizations  is  un- 
doubted, but  they  reach  a  small  number.  The  next  step  is  to  unify 
and  correlate  all  the  forces  directed  toward  a  far-sighted  placing 
of  the  young,  and  experiments  already  tried  show  that  this  unifica- 
tion is  best  done  under  the  supervision  of  the  municipality.  To 
manage  the  problem  requires  the  cooperation  of  school  board, 
principals,  teachers,  employers,  and  parents. 


SOME  ESSENTIALS  OF  VOCATIONAL  DIRECTION 

1 .  The  first  requisite  is  a  qualified  person  in  each  public  school 
who  can  give  sufficient  time  to  this  difficult  task.    Principals  and 
teachers  in  the  local  schools  have  given  attention  to  placing  boys 
and  girls,  but  the  pressure  of  other  duties  makes  it  impossible  to 
handle  the  situations. 

2.  The  vocational  adviser  should  study  the  advancement,  tastes, 
and  changing  interests  of  the  growing  boys  and  girls,  keep  a 
record  of  their  progress,  and  if  they  pass  on  to  higher  schools, 
send  the  record  to  the  person  there  having  charge  of  vocational 
direction.  The  points  useful  in  making  the  record  and  the  manner 
of  studying  each  individual  have  been  detailed  by  Parsons  and 
Bloomfield  as  a  result  of  their  experience  in  Boston.1 

3.  The  census  reports,  opportunities  in  the  various  occupations 
open  to  children,  and  any  material  bearing  on  the  wages,  treat- 
ment, and  qualifications  of  workers  in  specific  lines  of  work  should 
be  studied,  and  these  facts  should  be  written  simply  and  given  to 
the  children  for  reading  and  study.2    For  instance,  it  would  be  a 
valuable  thing  if  the  conditions  and  future  of  candy-factory  and 

1  Bloomfield,  Vocational  Guidance,  chaps,  iii-v;  Parsons,  Choosing  a  Vocation,  chaps,  iii-iv. 

2  To  keep  in  touch  with  schools  and  firms  offering  some  pay  to  boys  during  the  appren- 
ticeship or  student  period  is  especially  valuable.   The  cooperation  of  Lewis  Institute  with 
machine  foundries  —  the  half-time  system,  the  promotion  and  bonus  scheme  of  the  Lakeside 
Press,  and  the  apprenticeship  system  of  the  Santa  Fe  and  Rock  Island  railroads  are  ex- 
tremely interesting  to  boys  from  families  of  limited  resources.  The  chief  phases  and  examples 
of  cooperation  between  school  and  store,  factory  and  shop,  as  well  as  a  good  description  of 
the  advantages  and  limitations  of  apprenticeship  systems,  are  given  in  Dean,  The  Worker 
and  the  State,  chaps,  vii-viii. 


452  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

errand-boy  work  should  be  known  beforehand  by  those  who  prefer 
to  enter  these  occupations.  Similar  information  regarding  various 
trades  and  professions  should  be  at  hand. 

4.  Visits  made  by  the  older  children  in  order  to  see  the  facto- 
ries, stores,  and  workshops  with  a  specific  purpose  in  mind  would 
have  a  like  advantage.   They  would  make  the  children  familiar 
with  the  places  in  which  they  are  to  work,  and  each  visit  could 
be  supplemented  by  talks  given  to  the  older -pupils  by  business 
men,  professional  men,  and  representatives  of  labor  unions.    These 
talks  should  be  concrete,  simple,  and  unbiased. 

5.  Cooperation  with  the  labor  unions,   through  some  district 
organization  by  which  promising  boys  are  taken  in  as  apprentices, 
would  be  exceedingly  desirable,  but  present  conditions  in  organized 
labor  and  organized  capital  render  this  a  delicate  undertaking.1 

6.  An  important  phase  of  the  vocational-direction  movement 
is  the  attention  given  to  the  instruction  of  the  parent.    Bulletins 
in  his  own  language  presenting  the  advantages  and  disadvantages 
of  the  various  avenues  of  employment,  the  importance  of  further 
training  for  the  children,  and  the  schools  now  available  should 
be  sent  to  each  parent.    The  circular  sent  to  parents  of  children 
leaving  school  by  the  Edinburgh  School  Board  is  reproduced  in 
Bloomfield's  book.2 

7.  Not  only  should  vacancies  be  reported  by  the  employers,  but 
also  permanent  relations  secured  by  which  the  progress  of  the 
boy  may  be  kept  track  of ;  a  "  follow-up  "  system  is  essential.3 

1  That  is,  difficult  if  worked  out  on  a  large  scale  ;  the  cooperation  of  the  unions  with  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  technical  school  and  the  school  for  carpenters'  appren- 
tices under  the  direction  of  the  public-school  system  are  indicative  of  a  new  tendency.   The 
trade  union  has  a  right  to  protect  its  members  —  their  wages  and  the  conditions  under  which 
the  group  works.   The  readjustment  must  take  place  along  the  line  of  several  conflicting 
interests.    For  recent  statements  of  the  attitude  of  organized  labor  there  are  the  official 
report  of  the  Federation  of  Labor  on  industrial  education  and  the  speech  of  Winslow  in 
Bulletin  No.  13,  Part  IV,  of  the  National  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education. 
Cf.  Snedden,  op.  cit,  p.  64  ;  Draper,  Our  Children,  Our  Schools,  and  Our  Industries,  pp.  32, 
92,  93;  Professor  Richards,  Report  to  the  New  York  State  Department  of  Labor  (1908) ; 
Apprenticeship  and  Skilled  Employment  Association,  London  ;  Trades  for  London  Boys ; 
Trades  for  London  Girls;  Bemis,  "  Relation  of  Labor  Organizations  to  the  American  Boy 
and  to  Trade  Instruction,"  Annals  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science, 
Vol.  V,  pp.  209-241. 

2  Vocational  Guidance,  pp.  80  ff . 

8  Cf.  Greenwood,  Juvenile  Labour  Exchanges  and  After-Care ;  Rowntree  and  Lasker, 
Unemployment,  chap.  i. 


OPPORTUNITIES  IN  SCHOOL  AND  INDUSTRY      453 

One  need  scarcely  suggest  that  the  stimulus  of  having  school 
advancement  count  directly  toward  the  boy's  rinding  of  a  job  is  a 
motive,  not  theoretically  the  highest,  perhaps,  but  very  effective. 

Many  aspects  of  vocational  guidance  have  not  been  mentioned. 
Without  a  legal  authority  like  that  of  the  factory  inspector,  many 
of  the  facts  regarding  some  industries  cannot  be  secured  by  the 
investigators ;  such  information  is  indispensable  and  should  be 
accurate  and  full,  not  the  amount  and  kind  of  data  which  please 
the  good  nature  of  the  persons  consulted.  This  demand  is  based 
upon  the  theory  that  any  business  is  subject  to  the  common  good, 
and  that  obtaining  information  regarding  the  future  places  of  work 
of  the  child  is  just  as  essential  to  the  success  of  the  public  school 
as  setting  a  standard  of  entrance  into  the  teaching  profession. 

More  information  from  all  levels  of  society  regarding  the  many 
phases  of  juvenile  labor  is  requisite.  Social  settlements,  children's 
protective  associations,  and  other  agencies  should  devise  a  uniform 
method  of  keeping  such  facts  as  come  to  them,  so  that  a  sufficient 
body  of  material  may  be  available  upon  which  to  base  public 
opinion  and  wise  legislation.  The  provision  for  an  investigation 
of  the  conditions  calling  for  vocational  direction  made  by  the 
Massachusetts  state  legislature  recently  is  a  precedent  which  may 
profitably  be  followed  by  Illinois. 


BY  LOUISE  MONTGOMERY 

(Extracts  from  an  Investigation  carried  on  under  the  Direction  of  the  Board  of 

The  University  of  Chicago  Settlement  and  the  Chicago  Alumnae  Club  of  The 

University  of  Chicago) 

SECTION  I.   THE  EDUCATIONAL  STANDARDS  OF  THE 
COMMUNITY 

i.  THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  MAJORITY 

The  dominant  educational  standard  of  the  neighborhood  is  the 
minimum  legal  requirement  of  the  state,  accepted  with  little  protest 
by  the  majority,  for  the  people  as  a  whole  are  essentially  a  law- 
abiding  people.  By  habit  and  tradition  they  bow  before  the  accepted 
order  of  things.  In  the  absence  of  higher  ideals  585,  or  65  per  cent,1 
of  the  900  families  take  advantage  of  the  compulsory  age  law  to  fix 
the  limit  of  the  child's  schooling.  Within  this  group  it  is  possible 
to  make  a  loose  classification  of  the  controlling  influences  among 
the  parents  who  maintain  this  minimum  standard  :  (a)  the  peasant 
belief  that  education  is  the  privilege  of  "  the  upper  classes  " ;  (b}  the 
need  of  money  and  the  ambition  to  own  property ;  (c]  the  failure 
of  the  school  to  meet  the  practical  demands  of  the  working  people  ; 
(d)  the  ecclesiastical  ideal  of  education  which  must  permeate  a 
community  that  is  dominantly  Catholic.  This  classification  is  not 
given  to  represent  exclusive  boundary  lines.  It  is  common  to  find 
families  both  consciously  and  unconsciously  governed  by  two  or 
more  or  all  of  these  influences  united. 

1  The  percentage  is  higher  for  the  neighborhood  as  a  whole.  To  secure  material  for  later 
comparisons  in  the  wage-earning  capacity  of  girls,  a  search  was  made  for  families  who  had 
kept  their  girls  in  school  to  complete  the  elementary  course. 

454 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     455 

(a)  Among  many  hard-headed  peasants  there  is  the  traditional 
feeling  that  education  is  a  luxury  either  for  the  well-to-do  or  for 
those  whom  some  mysterious  power  has  placed  above  the  common 
people.    "  You  are  not  a  rich  American.    You  need  no  education 
beyond  the  law,"  was  the  answer  of  the  Slovak  mother  to  the 
daughter  who  wished  to  remain  in  school  until  the  end  of  her  course. 
"  My  children  belong  to  the  working  class,"  said  the  German  father. 
"  Education  will  spoil  them  for  earning  a  living  with  the  hands." 
Polish  parents  who  owned  a  three-story  tenement  from  which  they 
were  collecting  sixty  dollars  a  month  in  rentals  placed  their  fourteen- 
year-old  little  girl  in  a  factory  at  three  dollars  a  week,  not  because 
they  were  pressed  for  money  but  because  in  the  natural  order  of 
things  she  was  destined  to  marry  a  Polish  workingman  and  it 
would  be  very  unwise  to  unfit  her  for  that  position  by  giving  her 
"  the  education  of  a  Yankee."    In  more  than  one  half  of  the  585 
families  this  underlying  sentiment  rises  and  falls,  sometimes  carry- 
ing all  the  weight  of  an  authority  that  has  never  been  questioned, 
and  again  overpowered  by  a  sudden  comprehension  of  the  equal 
opportunities  open  to  all  classes  through  the  public  schools. 

(b)  A  number  much  larger  than  that  in  the  above  group  find  an 
actual  need  of  the  child's  wages  to  supplement  the  earnings  of  the 
father.    Broadly  speaking,  when  the  father's  wage  falls  below  two 
dollars  a  day  there  is  less  hope  for  the  extension  of  the  girl's  school- 
ing beyond  the  compulsory  age  limit,  although  the  neighborhood 
furnishes  heroic  examples  of  parental  sacrifices  proving  many  ex- 
ceptions to  the  rule.    In  this  group  of  585  families  there  are  125 
women  widowed,  deserted,  or  with  husbands  incapacitated  for  work, 
who  are  dependent  wholly  or  in  part  on  the  wages  of  their  children, 
and  the  wage  of  297  men  is  steadily  below  two  dollars  a  day. 

The  ambition  of  the  immigrant  to  own  property  in  America  is 
one  of  his  most  striking  characteristics.  For  it  he  will  make  almost 
unbelievable  sacrifices  both  of  his  own  comfort  and  of  that  of  his 
wife  and  children,  since  the  heavily  mortgaged  house  too  often  calls 
for  the  united  wage-earning  power  of  the  entire  family.  "  We  are 
building  without  money,"  was  the  reply  of  the  fourteen-year-old  girl 
when  asked  why  she  was  leaving  school  before  completing  the  sixth 
grade.  The  strength  of  this  feeling  is  due  in  part  to  the  natural 


456  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

desire  for  a  home,  which  in  the  stockyards  district  is  intensified  by 
a  constant  fear  of  reaching  an  early 1  old  age  in  helpless  penury. 
The  possession  of  a  house  from  which  one  may  draw  an  income  is 
the  highest  mark  of  prosperity,  just  as  the  inability  to  pay  one's 
rent  is  the  lowest  degree  of  poverty.  The  sacrifice  of  little  girls  to 
this  passionate  determination  to  own  property  may  be  found  in  any 
social  group,  from  the  undaunted  widow  who  takes  in  washing  six 
days  of  the  week  and  drives  her  children  to  any  task  that  will  bring 
in  money  to  meet  the  payments  on  the  four-room  cottage,  to  the 
thriving  saloon  keeper  who  is  landlord  over  a  dozen  tenants.  Thirty- 
seven  of  the  125  women  who  must  live  without  the  help  of  the 
wage-earning  man,  138  of  the  297  men  who  can  never  command 
two  dollars  a  day,  and  95  of  the  remaining  163  are  property  owners.2 
(c)  The  failure  of  the  elementary  school  to  meet  the  practical 
needs  of  an  industrial  community  is  recognized  by  many  parents. 
Although  they  cannot  always  define  their  dissatisfaction,  their  ulti- 
mate demand  is  that  educational  processes  shall  be  measured  in 
terms  of  economic  advantage.  With  the  vague  notion  that  the  school 
should  bear  some  relation  to  the  future  usefulness  of  the  child,  they 
often  look  for  concrete  results  that  shall  bring  immediate  returns. 
"  Mary  left  school  in  the  sixth  grade  and  she  can  bring  home  just 
as  much  money  as  Helen,  who  made  all  that  expense  for  another 
year  to  finish  the  seventh  grade  "  is  a  characteristic  comment  given 
as  conclusive  proof  that  an  added  year  in  school  has  no  practical 
value.  A  German  father  who  had  spent  fifteen  years  as  an  unskilled 
laborer  in  the  stockyards  patiently  and  laboriously  pondered  the 
relative  value  of  different  courses  offered  in  the  elementary  school 
and  finally  decided  that  even  girls  need  a  steady  job.  "  Work  with 
the  hands  is- good,"  he  explained,  "and  American  education  does 
not  give  it."  A  prosperous  Bohemian  who  owns  three  tenement 
houses  has  four  daughters  who  bear  witness  to  the  power  of  his 
authority  by  bringing  home  a  weekly  wage  from  department  store 
and  factory.  Each  girl  was  sent  out  to  work  at  the  age  of  fourteen 

1  Before  he  is  forty  years  of  age  the  stockyards  laborer  begins  to  have  a  fear  of  being  laid 
off  permanently  and  giving  place  to  younger  men.  At  forty-five  he  is  in  the  ranks  of  the  old 
men,  with  a  lowered  vitality  that  lessens  his  chances  of  employment  in  any  capacity. 

2  The  important  subject  of  housing  as  it  affects  the  family  life  has  been  purposely  omitted, 
as  this  subject  will  be  considered  in  forthcoming  papers. 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     457 

years  because  the  father  firmly  believed  that,  in  the  absence  of 
vocational  training  in  the  schools,  there  is  no  other  way  of  getting 
a  mastery  of  any  occupation.  In  123,  or  21  per  cent,  of  the  585 
families  the  parents  expressed  a  desire  for  some  definite  training 
that  should  furnish  either  trade  or  business  opportunities  for  girls. 
This  is  a  small  number.  More  than  50  per  cent  of  these  same 
families  believe  in  trade  and  business  training  for  boys.  The  skilled 
workers  from  the  older  countries  lament  the  lack  of  opportunity  to 
learn  a  trade  in  the  public  schools,  and  willingly  give  their  girls  to 
tailors,  dressmakers,  and  milliners  to  work  for  a  nominal  wage  that 
merely  covers  the  street-car  fare,  or  even  pay  for  places  in  the  sewing 
trades  because  they  do  not  know  that  apprenticeship  as  they  conceive 
of  it  does  not  exist  in  America.  Parents  of  this  type  are  ready  to 
make  sacrifices  for  their  children,  and  frankly  say  that  the  need  of 
money  or  the  desire  for  larger  gains  would  not  stand  in  the  way  of 
continued  schooling  "  of  the  right  kind,"  as  they  phrase  it. 

(d)  Among  the  900  families  805  feel  an  obligation  to  send  their 
children  to  the  parochial  school  for  a  part  of  their  training.  The 
feeling  arises  from  a  deep  religious  conviction  that  conquers  even 
those  who  recognize  the  greater  practical  value  of  the  work  of  the 
public  school.  In  many  families  the  confirmation  of  the  child  is 
the  triumphant  end  of  his  term  of  schooling,  although  this  religious 
ceremony  may  take  place  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  or  fifth  grade. 
"  She  has  finished  school  "  is  the  .simple  reply  to  a  challenge  of  the 
idle  fourteen-year-old  girl,  or  to  the  suggestion  that  more  training 
would.be  advisable,  but  in  the  mind  of  both  parents  and  child  this 
statement  relates  to  the  confirmation  only. 


2.  THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  MINORITY 

Apart  from  the  group  of  parents  who  from  one  motive  or  another 
accept  the  compulsory  age  limit  as  their  educational  standard  is 
another  group  made  up  of  those  who  look  beyond  the  law.  In  3 1 5 
families  one  or  more  of  the  children  had  completed  the  elementary 
public-school  course,  and  in  a  few  there  was  an  ambition  for  high 
school  or  business  college.  Often  fathers  and  mothers  had  a  vague 


458  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

notion  of  putting  their  children  "  beyond  their  parents  "  and  labored 
to  that  end  with  the  patient  hope  that  schooling  would  do  it.  Just 
how  this  was  going  to  be  accomplished  they  could  not  explain.  As 
a  Bohemian  laborer  of  the  stockyards  expressed  it,  "  People  who 
have  learned  nothing  do  the  dirty  work  of  the  world.  I  want  my 
children  to  have  a  chance  at  a  clean  job.  That 's  why  I  send  them 
to  school."  At  the  birth  of  his  first  child,  a  little  girl,  a  Polish 
carpenter  bought  an  English  dictionary  and  began  paying  for  an 
encyclopedia  on  the  installment  plan,  because  he  meant  to  educate 
his  children  and  he  knew  that  "  educated  people  always  have  books 
around."  A  strong  conviction  that  continued  schooling  would  be 
best  for  the  child  sometimes  conquered  extreme  poverty.  An  Irish 
mother  denied  herself  sufficient  food  that  she  might  pay  the  cost 
of  sending  two  children  to  the  high  school,  and  it  is  not  uncommon 
to  find  women  taking  in  washing  to  meet  the  tuition  of  a  six  months' 
course  in  a  business  college.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  first  group 
of  585  families  422  are  struggling  with  a  poverty  that  makes  the 
wage-earning  child  a  probable  necessity.  Although  the  prosperous 
financial  condition  of  the  family  is  by  no  means  a  guaranty  of  a 
higher  educational  standard,  broadly  speaking  again,  when  the 
father's  wage  is  above  the  two-dollar-a-day  limit  there  is  less  haste 
in  getting  the  children  into  temporary  occupations  and  a  little  more 
intelligent  consideration  of  their  future.  In  180,  or  57  per  cent,  of 
the  315  families  the  wage  or  income  of  the  father  alone  is  steadily 
above  two  dollars  a  day.  For  92,  or  5 1  per  cent,  of  the  180  fami- 
lies the  father's  income  is  above  $825  a  year;  and  $825  a  year, 
according  to  the  standards  of  the  neighborhood,  is  considered  a 
very  comfortable  living.  This  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  position 
of  the  head  of  the  family  because  in  the  majority  of  cases  it  is 
his  earning  power,  and  not  a  temporary  income  from  boarders, 
lodgers,  rentals,  or  the  mother's  work,  that  determines  when  the 
child  shall  leave  school. 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     459 

3.  THE  PREVAILING  ATTITUDE  IN  REGARD  TO  THE  EDUCATION 

OF  GIRLS 

The  educational  standards  of  the  foreign  home  as  outlined  above 
influence  the  future  of  both  boys  and  girls,  but  in  the  stockyards 
district  it  is  necessary  to  take  into  consideration  a  point  of  view 
that  affects  girls  as  a  separate  class.  The  fundamental  idea  that 
the  education  of  the  girl  is  a  matter  of  much  less  importance  than 
the  education  of  the  boy  is  accepted  without  question  in  all  of  the 
900  families.  A  well-to-do  Polish  landlord  who  doubted  the  advisa- 
bility of  sending  his  fourteen-year-old  daughter  to  the  high  school 
told  with  pride  of  the  plans  he  had  in  mind  for  the  university  train- 
ing of  his  son,  who  was  then  playing  in  a  kindergarten.  A  kindly 
and  indulgent  father,  he  had  no  reason  for  making  this  distinction 
except  his  negative  attitude  toward  the  education  of  women.  "  If 
a  girl  is  very  smart,"  said  a  Lithuanian  mother,  "it  is  well  to  keep 
her  in  school,  but  when  she  is  not  so  she  must  make  money  before 
the  marriage  time  comes."  That  marriage  is  the  ultimate  goal  of 
the  girl  admits  of  no  argument  in  the  community.  This  state  re- 
quires no  special  schooling,  and  it  will  come  early  in  life.  In  the 
families  hard  pressed  by  poverty  the  girl  is  made  to  feel  that  she 
must  earn  money  enough  to  make  some  cash  return  for  her  bring- 
ing up.  In  the  probable  event  of  an  early  marriage,  prolonging  her 
school  time  shortens  the  period  of  her  life  when  she  is  paying  this 
debt.  However,  it  does  not  follow  that  all  girls  are  neglected. 
There  are  subtle  influences  that  may  temporarily  obscure  a  funda- 
mental ideal  and  give  the  girl  a  permanent  advantage.  Among  those 
who  completed  the  elementary-school  course  40  possessed  an  un- 
usual cleverness  that  enabled  them  to  finish  before  the  age  of  four- 
teen. The  only  daughter  or  the  youngest  girl  in  the  family  may  be 
given  the  exceptional  chance  to  extend  her  school  life  a  year  or 
more  into  the  high  school,  not  always  from  any  definite  conviction 
of  the  parents  in  regard  to  the  needs  of  the  girl,  but  rather  as  a 
matter  of  indulgence.  Especially  is  this  true  in  families  where  the 
income  is  sufficient,  $825  a  year  or  more,  and  there  is  a  desire  to 
protect  the  girl  at  home  and  keep  her  from  the  limited  field  of  in- 
dustry which  a  few  parents  now  recognize  is  the  only  field  open 


460  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to  the  girl  under  sixteen  years  of  age.  Still  the  fact  remains  that 
in  a  community  of  comparatively  low  educational  standards  there  is 
an  underlying  thought  which  both  consciously  and  unconsciously 
assigns  to  the  girl  a  position  inferior  to  that  of  her  brother. 


SECTION  II.    THE  LOCAL  SCHOOLS 
i.  PUBLIC  AND  PAROCHIAL  SCHOOLS 

The  900  families  live  within  the  district  boundaries  of  three 
public  schools,1  the  Hamline,  the  Hedges,  and  the  Seward.  The 
combined  membership  of  these  schools  at  the  close  of  September, 
1912,  was  1273  boys  and  1222  girls.  They  are  subject  to  the  gen- 
eral course  of  study  outlined  for  all  of  the  elementary  public  schools 
of  the  city.  Cooking  and  sewing  are  the  only  occupational  subjects 
provided  for  girls,  and  there  are  as  yet  no  opportunities  for  voca- 
tional courses.2  The  Lake  High  School 3  offers  the  usual  studies, 
with  the  exception  that  the  course  in  household  arts  is  omitted, 
owing  to  the  lack  of  a  sufficient  number  of  girls  to  form  classes  in 
subjects  designed  to  equip  the  home-maker.  At  the  close  of  Sep- 
tember, 1912,  the  membership  was  459  boys  and  307  girls.  The 
one  evening  school  of  the  neighborhood,  which  is  open  four  evenings 
in  the  week  for  twenty  weeks  of  the  year,  offers  optional  classes  in 
cooking  and  sewing  for  girls  over  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  pro- 
vides special  instruction  for  foreigners  who  wish  to  learn  the  English 
language.  It  also  gives  all  pupils  who  did  not  complete  the  eighth 
grade  a  chance  to  make  up  that  loss.  The  total  enrollment  for  the 
season  closing  March  13,  1913,  was  511  men  and  boys  and  102 
women  and  girls. 

1  The  Hamline  School  contains  an  open-air  room,  a  dental  room,  and  provides  special 
instruction  for  subnormal  children.   The  Seward  School  has  two  special  rooms  set  apart,  one 
for  subnormal  children  and  one  for  truants  and  other  children  who  need  individual  attention. 

2  For  the  present  the  elementary  industrial  course  for  grades  6,  7,  and  8  (adopted  June  29, 
1911)  is  offered  only  on  the  special  permission  of  the  superintendent  and  in  districts  where 
the  demand  is  sufficient  to  call  for  four  divisions  of  pupils. 

8  The  Lake  High  School  offers  special  vocational  courses  for  over-age  boys  from  grades 
6,  7,  and  8  of  the  elementary  schools.  Eighty  boys  were  transferred  to  these  courses  in 
September,  1912.  No  such  provision  is  made  for  girls.  They  may  be  admitted  to  the  Lucy 
Flower  Technical  High  School,  but  the  distance,  which  requires  car  fare,  makes  this  school 
prohibitive  for  those  whose  need  is  greatest. 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     461 

Within  this  same  boundary  or  closely  adjacent  to  it  there  are  nine 
parochial  schools  (eight  Catholic  and  one  German  Lutheran)  that 
draw  pupils  from  the  population  of  these  public-school  districts.  At 
the  close  of  September,  1912,  the  total  membership1  was  about 
5722.  No  adequate  information  is  on  record  of  the  work  of  the 
parish  schools,  of  the  relative  amount  of  time  spent  in  teaching 
the  English  language,  nor  of  the  number  of  subjects  which  the 
pupils  are  required  to  accept  in  a  foreign  tongue.  No  study  of  the 
parochial-school  child  has  been  made.  In  the  absence  of  an  exact 
card  system  which  records  the  work  of  the  pupil  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  his  school  life  we  have  no  data  from  which  to  draw 
conclusions.  There  is  a  constant  movement  between  the  public  and 
the  parochial  school,  and  the  number  of  years  any  child  spends  in 
each  depends  upon  the  family  standards.  Some  ambitious  parents 
appreciate  the  loss  involved  in  the  change  and  give  to  the  parochial 
school  the  minimum  time  required.  To  this  group  may  be  added 
many  who  are  too  poor  to  carry  the  burden  of  continued  tuition. 
A  large  number  are  loyal  to  the  parochial  school  as  an  institution 
and  send  their  children  to  the  public  school  only  after  confirmation. 


2.  THE  ADAPTATION  OF  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  TO  THE  NEEDS 
OF  THE  GIRL 

The  public-school  teachers  work  under  a  serious  handicap. 
In  a  community  of  low  educational  standards  they  are  dealing 
largely  with  children  who  either  have  begun  or  must  end  their  formal 
education  in  a  parochial  school,  or  at  best  are  obliged  to  interrupt 
the  public-school  course  with  a  year  of  absence.  However,  there 
are  three  legitimate  methods  of  testing  the  success  of  the  present 
school  system  :  (a)  the  attitude  of  the  girl  to  the  school ;  (b~)  her 
continued  interest  in  educational  opportunities  ;  (c)  the  extent  of 
retardation  and  elimination. 

(a)  The  attitude  of  the  girl  to  the  school.  To  what  extent  girls 
would  be  able  to  rise  above  the  level  of  the  home  under  a  different 

1  The  figures  for  seven  of  these  schools  are  given  in  the  official  Catholic  Directory  for 
1912.  Membership  by  sex  is  not  given. 


462  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

school  system  cannot  at  present  be  estimated.  That  the  school  as 
it  stands  to-day  has  too  little  power  in  drawing  their  voluntary 
attendance  is  the  conclusion  based  on  the  combined  testimony  of 
teachers,  parents,  and  children.  Of  300  girls  who  left  school  before 
completing  the  elementary  course,  195,  or  65  per  cent,  were  below 
the  seventh  grade.  Of  the  entire  number  only  twelve  went  unwill- 
ingly, forced  to  do  so  by  the  purely  commercial  attitude  of  their 
parents.  Two  hundred  and  eighty-eight,  or  96  per  cent,  had  a 
more  or  less  pronounced  dislike  of  school,  as  shown  by  their  trivial 
reasons  for  leaving  and  by  the  eagerness  with  which  they  welcomed 
the  first  opportunity  to  escape  and  go  to  work  for  a  meager  wage. 
Since  the  possession  of  an  eighth-grade  certificate  is  a  matter  of 
pride,  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  a  larger  number  among  the  so- 
called  "  graduates  "  who  expressed  a  cheerful  or  even  an  enthusi- 
astic attitude  toward  the  school.  There  are  certain  types  for  whom 
the  everyday  life  of  the  school  runs  smoothly.  They  are  bright  and 
secure  their  promotions  easily  ;  they  are  sociable  and  find  friends  ; 
they  are  tractable  and  submit  to  the  discipline  of  a  routine  which, 
if  sometimes  irksome,  is  on  the  whole  a  part  of  a  happy  childhood. 
Of  the  200  girls  who  are  now  proud  of  having  completed  the  ele- 
mentary course,  102,  or  51  per  cent,  liked  school.  Ninety-eight 
disliked  it  and,  if  they  had  been  allowed  to  follow  their  own  childish 
inclinations,  would  have  left  at  the  earliest  opportunity.  The  parents 
who  compelled  98  girls  to  complete  the  eighth  grade  told  many  a 
tale  of  their  trials.  "  Don't  talk  to  me  of  high  school,"  said  a  father. 
"  It 's  been  all  I  'm  worth  to  drive  my  children  through  the  first 
school."  "  My  girls  won't  take  education  easily,"  explained  the 
mother  of  three  daughters  with  unconscious  irony,  "  because  they're 
all  so  strong  they  like  something  to  do." 

The  girl's  dislike  of  school  is  not  grounded  in  any  discriminating 
analysis  of  the  situation,  and  her  feeling  is  often  exaggerated l  by 
the  natural  restlessness  of  this  period  of  youth  which  brings  the 
desire  for  new  fields  of  endeavor  more  alluring  because  remote  and 
untried.  To  secure  some  understanding  of  the  attitude  of  the  older 

1  One  girl  threatened  to  kill  herself  if  she  were  forced  to  stay  in  school,  and  cheerfully 
accepted  the  alternative  of  rising  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  be  ready  for  a  position  in 
a  tailor  shop,  where  she  could  earn  three  dollars  a  week. 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     463 

girl  who  has  had  her  chance  to  gratify  this  childish  longing,  the 
simple  question,  "  What  did  you  learn  in  school  that  has  helped 
you  to  earn  a  living?  "  was  put  to  200  working  girls  of  the  first 
group  and  to  100  of  the  second  group  who  are  between  sixteen 
and  twenty-four  years  of  age.  One  half  of  the  first  group  replied, 
"  Nothing."  The  other  half  gave,  in  about  equal  proportion,  read- 
ing, writing,  arithmetic,  and  "  English  when  it  helps  you  to  talk 
well."  One  thoughtful  girl  realized  the  gist  of  the  matter  when 
she  said,  "  Nothing  helps  me  much  because  I  had  so  little  of  it." 
The  vague  notion  that  training  of  some  kind  might  increase  their 
earning  capacity  was  revealed  in  a  few  answers.  As  one  girl  sadly 
put  it,  ' '  After  we  get  out  and  try  working  a  couple  of  years,  we  find 
we  need  something  we  have  n't  got.  Maybe  it 's  education.  What- 
ever it  is,  we  don't  know  how  to  get  it."  The  100  girls  of  the 
second  group,  being  eighth-grade  graduates  and  engaged  largely 
in  commercial  work,  gave  the  same  list  of  studies,  but  emphasized 
the  value  of  spelling  and  grammar.  An  effort  was  also  made  to 
discover  whether  education  meant  greater  efficiency,  joy  in  work, 
or  any  other  satisfaction  apart  from  money  values.  The  revelations 
were  pathetic.  For  the  girls  who  had  missed  the  benefit  of  the 
complete  course  the  school  was  something  altogether  remote.  It 
had  taught  them  the  "fundamentals,"  reading,  writing,  and  figur- 
ing, which  all  agreed  are  a  necessity  in  any  position.  Beyond 
this  service  the  school  was  in  no  way  related  to  the  business  of 
living  as  they  had  experienced  it.  The  "  graduates  "  invariably 
gave  some  credit  to  school  discipline  and  training,  regardless 
of  their  feelings  at  the  time  when  they  were  a  part  of  it.  A 
few  had  found  pleasure  in  the  mental  activity  of  the  high  school 
or  the  business  college.  For  the  greater  number  a  longer  period 
in  school  meant  an  opportunity  to  enter  that  respectable  form 
of  occupation  known  as  "the  office  job."  These  positions  are 
held  in  exaggerated  esteem  throughout  the  entire  neighborhood 
and,  by  giving  a  certain  "  upper  class  "  quality  to  the  girls  who 
secure  them,  add  to  the  value  of  the  conventional  requirements 
of  the  school. 

It  is  not  possible  to  draw  exact  conclusions  from  evidence  of  this 
character,  yet  it  has  a  certain  suggestive  value.    Judged  by  the 


464  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

personal  feelings  of  girls,  there  is  too  little  joy  in  the  present  for- 
mal processes  of  education.  From  the  testimony  of  the  older  girls 
it  is  evident  that  the  school  leaves  but  slight  impression  upon  those 
who  fail  to  receive  the"  benefit  of  a  complete  elementary  course. 

(d)  Continued  interest  in  educational  opportunities.  It  has  been 
a  widely  accepted  notion  in  the  past  that  pupils  may  take  advantage 
of  the  evening  school  to  compensate  in  a  measure  for  their  failure 
to  secure  the  needed  training  of  the  eight  grades.  The  principal 
who  has  had  ten  years  of  experience  in  the  evening  school  of  the 
neighborhood  states  that  few  girls  care  for  what  he  calls  "  regular 
class  work."  One  wishes  to  make  a  shirt  waist,  another  would  like 
to  trim  a  hat,  a  third  asks  for  the  teacher's  help  in  fitting  a  skirt, 
and  a  few  enjoy  the  sociability  of  a  cooking  class.  The  majority 
are  seeking  a  pleasant  evening,  the  free  use  of  a  sewing  machine, 
and  some  immediate  practical  returns  for  their  time,  but  do  not 
take  kindly  to  technical  instruction  in  any  subject.  During  the 
past  year  two  girls  completed  in  the  evening  school  the  required 
studies  of  the  elementary  course  and  at  the  present  writing  are 
candidates  for  the  eighth-grade  certificate.  No  other  cases  are  on 
record.  In  the  first  group  of  300  girls  there  are  18  who  attended 
the  evening  sessions  for  one  season.  Only  15  have  been  willing 
to  spend  their  evenings  at  the  Settlement  in  cooking,  sewing,  or 
millinery  classes.  Two  ambitious  girls  paid  $50  and  $60  respec- 
tively for  special  courses  in  sewing,  one  to  a  private  dressmaker 
and  the  other  to  a  "  college  of  dressmaking."  Of  the  three  girls 
who  went  to  business  college  two  gave  it  up  before  the  end  of 
the  six  months'  course  because  of  deficient  preparation  in  English. 
The  third,  after  spending  six  months  in  the  college  and  three 
months  in  searching  for  an  opening,  surrendered  in  bitter  dis- 
appointment and  went  into  a  bookbindery,  though  she  innocently 
insisted  that  she  might  have  been  a  stenographer  if  anyone  had 
been  willing  to  give  her  a  position.  This  is  the  record  of  38  girls 
who  made  the  effort  to  secure  systematic  training  in  some  form 
after  leaving  school.  For  the  remaining  262,  when  the  school 
granted  the  work  certificate  it  was  equivalent  to  a  dismissal  from  all 
active  educational  interests.  It  is  evident  that  even  the  American- 
born  girl  of  the  community  cannot  make  up  for  a  deficient 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     465 

education  by  taking  class  instruction  after  working  hours.1  Yet 
these  girls  are  not  stupid.  They  are  2  handicapped  in  many  ways. 
Work  from  eight  to  ten  hours  a  day  taxes  their  strength  ;  neither 
their  ambitions  nor  their  special  aptitudes  and  interests  have  been 
stimulated  to  the  point  of  making  further  attendance  at  school  seem 
desirable.  Moreover,  the  independent  effort  expected  of  those  who 
voluntarily  attend  special  classes  is  too  often  beyond  their  capacity 
because  they  have  missed  the  training  and  discipline  they  should 
have  received  at  an  earlier  age. 

In  the  second  group  of  200  girls  19  attended  the  Lake  High 
School  for  periods  ranging  from  three  months  to  three  years.  (One 
remained  three  years,  and  six  stayed  two  years.)  Twenty-four  were 
in  the  high  school  at  the  time  this  investigation  was  in  process. 
Thirty-four  went  to  business  college  for  periods  ranging  from  two 
months  to  one  year.  Five  are  in  business  college  at  the  present 
writing.  Five  had  given  one  winter  to  the  evening  school,  but  not 
one  had  attended  the  domestic  classes  at  the  Settlement.  This 
makes  a  total  of  87  out  of  200  in  contrast  to  the  38  out  of  300 
who  tried  to  take  advantage  of  educational  opportunities  open 
to  them  after  leaving  the  elementary  school.  This  difference  in 
favor  of  the  eighth-grade  graduate  is  due  in  part  to  a  greater 
freedom  from  financial  pressure,  but  in  a  larger  measure  to  the 
school  training  that  made  a  profitable  continuation  of  any  line  of 
study  possible. 

(c)  The  extent  of  retardation  and  elimination.  The  recent  con- 
clusion that  the  instruction  given  in  the  eight  grades  of  the  ele- 
mentary school  is  better  fitted  to  the  needs  of  the  girl  than  to  the 
nature  of  the  boy  is  based  upon  Ayres's3  investigation  showing  the 
relative  distribution  of  boys  and  girls  in  the  grades  and  the  greater 
percentage  of  retardation  and  elimination  among  boys.  He  finds 

1  The  new  compulsory  education  law  of  Ohio,  in  effect  May,  1910,  recognizes  the  need  of 
part-time  day  schools  for  working  children  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  years  of  age  who 
have  not  completed  the  eighth  grade.    Evening-school  hours  may  not  be  accepted  as  a 
substitute. 

2  In  his  study  of  the  educational  status  of  working-boys  Mr.  Ristine  found  that  "  boys 
of  the  eighth  grade  were  superior  to  those  of  the  seventh,  as  were  those  of  the  seventh 
superior  to  the  sixth  "  (A  Report  on  Vocational  Training  in  Chicago  and  in  Other  Cities 
by  a  Committee  of  the  City  Club  of  Chicago,  p.  277).    As  far  as  the  writer  knows,  no 
similar  tests  have  been  given  to  girls.  8  Ayres,  Laggards  in  our  Schools,  p.  158. 


466 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


that  "  retardation  among  boys  in  elementary  schools  is  13  per  cent 
more  prevalent  than  among  girls  "  ;  also  that  "  the  proportion  of 
girls  who  remain  to  the  final  elementary  grade  is  1 7  per  cent  greater 
than  the  proportion  of  boys  who  remain."  Accepting  the  method 
of  computation  used  by  Ayres,  Mr.  Wreidt,1  in  his  study  of  the 
public  schools  of  Chicago,  finds  that  for  the  city  as  a  whole  there 
is  15  per  cent  more  retardation  among  boys  than  among  girls, 
and  also  that  the  percentage  of  girls  in  the  first  grade  who  re- 
main to  enter  the  eighth  is  1 5  per  cent  greater  than  the  percentage 
of  boys.  He  accepts  Ayres's  conclusion  that  the  present  school 
system  is  "  better  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  girls  than  to  those 
of  the  boys." 

This  conclusion  is  not  wholly  true  for  the  district  under  consider- 
ation. The  following  tables  present  retardation  and  elimination 
figures 2  for  three  public  schools  : 


TABLE    I.     PERCENTAGE    OF   RETARDED    PUPILS    AMONG    BOYS 
AND   AMONG  GIRLS   IN  THREE  LOCAL  SCHOOLS 


SCHOOL 

BOYS 

GIRLS 

DIFFERENCE  IN 
FAVOR  OF  THE  GIRLS 

Hamline   

-n-6 

2T. 

IO.6 

Hedges     
Seward      

26.6 

74.6 

21.9 
12.S 

4-7 
1.8  • 

Average  of  percentages  . 

31.6 

25'9 

5-7 

In  each  school  there  is  more  retardation  among  boys  than  among 
girls.    Since  the  average  percentage  of  retardation  is  3 1 .6  among 

1  A  Report  on  Vocational  Training  in  Chicago  and  in  Other  Cities  by  a  Committee  of 
the  City  Club  of  Chicago,  pp.  31-32. 

2  Based  on  the  age  and  grade  records  of  pupils  at  the  time  of  their  first  enrollment  during 
the  school  year  1910-1911.   The  method  of  computation  is  that  used  by  Ayres  in  present- 
ing the  relative  amounts  of  retardation  and  elimination  among  boys  and  girls  in  fifteen  cities. 
The  results  differ  slightly  from  those  obtained  by  securing  the  percentage  of  retardation  and 
elimination  for  the  three  schools  together  according  to  the  method  of  computation  used  above 
to  obtain  the  percentage  for  each  school  separately.   The  results  obtained  in  computing  re- 
tardation must  vary  according  to  the  method  employed  and  the  time  in  the  school  year  at 
which  the  statistics  are  gathered.    Ayres  has  pointed  out  the  difference  between  figures  on 
record  in  September  and  those  on  record  in  June  even  in  the  same  city ;  also  the  difference 
between  figures  gathered  on  the  basis  of  total  enrollment  and  those  gathered  at  a  given  date 
in  the  school  year. 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     467 

boys  and  25.9  among  girls,  taking  the  percentage  of  retardation 
among  girls  as  a  basis,  we  find  that  retardation  among  boys  is 
22  per  cent  greater  than  among  girls. 


TABLE   II.     PERCENTAGE   OF    BOYS    AND    GIRLS    RETAINED    TO 
THE  EIGHTH   GRADE  IN  THREE   LOCAL  SCHOOLS 


SCHOOLS 

PERCENTAGE  OF 
BOYS  RETAINED 

TO   THE 

EIGHTH  GRADE 

PERCENTAGE  OF 

GlRLS    RETAINED 
TO   THE 

EIGHTH  GRADE 

DIFFERENCE  IN 
FAVOR  OF  THE  BOYS 

Hamline   
Hedges     

3° 
-zc.c 

27 
28.1 

3 

7.J. 

Seward      

-32 

2^.4. 

8.6 

Average  of  percentages  . 

32-5 

26.2 

6-3 

In  each  school  a  greater  percentage  of  boys  than  of  girls  is  re- 
tained to  the  eighth  grade,  the  difference  in  favor  of  the  boys  being 
6.3  per  cent.  Taking  the  percentage  of  girls  retained  to  the  eighth 
grade  as  a  basis,  we  find  that  the  proportion  of  boys  who  remain  in 
school  to  enter  the  eighth  grade  is  24  per  cent  greater  than  the 
proportion  of  girls  who  remain.  These  figures  show  a  condition 
for  the  three  local  schools  the  reverse  of  that  revealed  in  other  in- 
vestigations in  which  a  higher  percentage  of  retardation  is  naturally 
followed  by  a  higher  percentage  of  elimination.  Not  all  of  the 
pupils  retained  to  the  eighth  grade  remain  to  complete  the  course. 
A  count  was  made  of  the  number  of  children  who  received  eighth- 
grade  certificates  from  the  three  schools  during  a  period  of  six  years. 
From  September,  1906,  to  July,  191 2, 1  249  boys  and  213  girls  are 
so  recorded.  Judged  by  the  extent  of  retardation,  the  tendency  of 
the  girls  of  the  stockyards  district  is  the  same  as  that  of  girls  every- 
where. They  are  meeting  the  demands  of  the  American  public- 
school  system  more  easily  than  their  brothers.  In  spite  of  this  fact, 

1  During  the  same  period  14  boys  and  2  girls,  who  had  previously  graduated  from  the 
Seward  or  the  Hamline  schools,  completed  a  four-year  course  at  the  Lake  High  School.  One 
boy  and  one  girl,  both  from  the  Hamline  School,  finished  the  two-year  business  course.  No 
boy  or  girl  from  the  Hedges  School  has  completed  any  course  at  the  Lake  High  School. 
No  records  were  secured  from  the  Catholic  High  School  located  at  Wallace  and  Forty-fifth 
streets. 


468  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

the  percentage  of  elimination  among  the  girls  is  greater  than  that 
found  in  Chicago  as  a  whole  and  in  other  cities  of  which  we  have 
similar  records. 

It  is  not  possible  to  push  the  logic  of  Ayres  to  the  conclusion 
that  these  local  schools  retain  to  the  eighth  grade  and  also  graduate 
a  higher  percentage  of  boys  because  the  work  offered  is  better  suited 
to  their  needs.  The  explanation  seems  to  lie  in  the  educational 
standards  of  the  community,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  regard  the 
education  of  the  boy  as  a  matter  of  more  consequence  than  the 
education  of  the  girl. 

SECTION  III.   THE  GIRL  AS  A  WAGE-EARNING  CHILD 
i.  THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  PARENTS 

The  political  and  religious  conflicts  of  the  older  nations  have  had 
little  influence  in  determining  either  the  character  or  the  extent  of 
immigration  to  the  stockyards  district.  With  few  exceptions,  these 
foreign  people  came  to  America  with  the  hope  of  improving  their 
financial  condition.  Many  brought  with  them  the  simple  conviction 
that  in  the  New  World  there  are  vast  spaces  in  which  may  be  found 
unlimited  opportunities  to  work  at  relatively  high  wages.  It  must 
be  remembered  also  that  there  is  no  economic  surplus  which  makes 
the  idle  woman  possible.  From  necessity  neither  women  nor  chil- 
dren are  exempt  from  labor  of  some  kind,  and  there  is  no  sentiment 
in  the  community  that  favors  their  existence  as  an  unproductive 
class.  The  ever-present  thought  of  the  girl's  early  marriage  renders 
the  careful  choice  of  an  occupation  unnecessary.  As  a  natural  re- 
sult of  this  point  of  view,  the  immediate  money  value  of  any  posi- 
tion open  to  little  girls  is  too  often  the  first  consideration,  in  entire 
disregard  of  disastrous  effects  that  may  follow  in  the  physical,  mental, 
or  moral  life  of  the  child.  Yet  the  foreign  mothers  who  appear  to 
accept  as  a  matter  of  course  demoralizing  conditions  of  employment 
for  their  daughters  are  not  necessarily  brutal  in  other  relations  with 
them.  The  women  are  vigorous,  hard-headed,  and  practical,  and 
to  them  belongs  the  difficult  task  of  making  ends  meet.  Moreover, 
they  are  altogether  ignorant  of  the  city  outside  of  their  very  limited 
round,  for  the  majority  who  innocently  send  their  little  girls  to  look 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     469 

for  work  "  down  town  somewhere  "  have  never  done  a  day's  shop- 
ping beyond  the  two  or  three  blocks  on  Ashland  Avenue  where  the 
department  stores  supply  all  of  their  needs.  Fathers  too  often  have 
no  knowledge  of  opportunities  other  than  those  of  the  packing  in- 
dustry where  they  are  employed.  Many  a  father  who  persistently 
refuses  even  in  the  face  of  poverty  to  secure  a  place  for  his  daughter 
in  the  "  Yards,"  because  he  has  some  understanding  of  the  condi- 
tions there,  will  unwittingly  expose  her  to  greater  dangers  in  remote 
industries  of  which  he  knows  nothing.  Men  and  women  are  facing 
unknown  conditions,  a  strange  language,  and  an  unwonted  freedom. 
They  look  back  to  their  own  childhood  of  early  hard  labor  in  the 
small  village  or  the  open  field  and  justify  the  work  of  their  children 
in  the  city  factory.  It  is  a  complex  situation  for  simple  minds,  and 
a  confusion  of  standards  is  inevitable. 

2.  THE  METHOD  OF  FINDING  WORK 

Since  parents  lack  a  constructive  knowledge  of  the  occupations 
open  to  their  daughters,  the  girls  are  thrown  upon  their  own  limited 
resources.  The  first  information  often  comes  from  a  neighbor's 
daughter,  who  knows  the  wage  of  the  beginner  in  the  place  where 
she  herself  is  working.  With  this  one  fact  only  as  a  guide  the  girl 
may  make  an  application  in  person  with  no  thought  of  her  fitness 
for  the  place  and  no  knowledge  that  a  vacancy  exists.  Assistance 
of  this  kind  from  friends  or  relatives  can  have  no  positive  value 
without  a  point  of  view  which  they  do  not  possess.  The  best  em- 
ployment offices  do  not  care  to  handle  child  labor.  Boys  sometimes 
resort  to  them,  but  little  girls,  being  less  daring  and  more  economi- 
cal, will  not  promise  the  first  week's  wages  for  the  sake  of  a  posi- 
tion which  others  have  found  with  no  expense.  The  only  intelligent 
assistance  has  come  from  a  few  school-teachers,  who  have  voluntarily 
followed  a  limited  number  of  children  beyond  the  door  of  the  school- 
house,  and  from  the  Settlement,  which  has  always  made  an  effort 
to  keep  in  touch  with  groups  of  young  people.  However,  there  is 
another  factor  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the  problem  of  supervision. 
The  escape  from  the  discipline  of  school  often  brings  a  sudden 
recognition  of  an  unaccustomed  freedom  that  may  be  used  without 
question.  Girls  have  been  known  to  avoid  the  Settlement  for  fear 


470  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

of  being  advised  to  return  to  school,  or  of  missing  the  chance  to 
go  to  the  heart  of  the  city.  Untrained  girls  of  this  age  and  type 
are  essentially  gregarious,  and  they  blindly  follow  this  instinct.  If 
one  finds  a  place  in  a  factory  on  the  West  Side  of  the  city,  a  dozen 
others  in  her  block  will  follow  if  possible,  in  spite  of  the  inconvenient 
distance  and  an  altogether  undesirable  occupation.  The  haphazard 
way  of  finding  work  has  its  attractions  and  appears  to  offer  wide 
opportunities.  Day  after  day  groups  of  little  girls  go  the  round 
of  one  factory  after  another,  pitifully  ignorant  of  a  condition  that 
makes  the  field  of  industry  into  which  they  seek  an  entrance  always 
overcrowded  with  applicants  of  their  kind,  and  feeling  only  a  certain 
childish  wonder  and  joy  in  the  roar  of  a  great  city.  Often  they 
spend  weeks  following  the  incomplete  and  misleading  advertisements 
of  the  newspapers,  usually  finding  that  the  positions  call  for  girls 
beyond  their  years  and  ability,  and  it  is  not  impossible  to  find  them 
walking  up  and  down  State  Street,  leaving  a  poorly  written  appli- 
cation for  work  at  the  several  department  stores  and  even  stopping 
men  and  women  with  an  eager  request  for  "  a  job  somewhere."  In 
•all  this  there  is  a  pleasurable  excitement  if  it  does  not  last  too 
long  and  a  cheap  position  results  from  their  wanderings. 

In  such  a  manner  and  with  no  preparation  little  girls  go  from 
the  comparative  protection  of  the  school  and  the  home  to  gain 
their  first  experiences  as  wage  earners.  The  opportunities  for  in- 
discretions and  follies  at  the  close  of  many  such  days  of  unguided 
freedom  in  a  large  city  must  not  be  underestimated. 

3.  WHERE  THE  COMPULSORY  EDUCATION  LAW  FAILS 

The  first  group  of  300  girls  contains  185  who  found  immediate 
occupation.  (This  does  not  mean  steady  employment.)  Forty-two 
were  taken  out  of  school  by  busy  mothers  who  demanded  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  fourteen-year-old  girl  to  the  care  of  younger  children. 
The  remaining  73  were  idle  for  periods  ranging  from  four  months 
to  one  year.  Their  record  showed  futile  and  unintelligent  efforts  to 
find  work,  repeated  to  the  point  of  discouragement  and  exhaustion 
but  relieved  by  weeks  at  home,  for  not  one  of  the  73  girls  thought 
of  returning  to  school,  and  not  one  was  compelled  to  do  so.  They 
had  taken  out  their  "  working  papers,"  and  so  final  is  this  legal 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     471 

possession  of  the  work  certificate  that  in  spite  of  the  failure  to  secure 
employment  few  girls :  return  to  school  after  this  certificate  has  been 
granted.  Although  the  law  calling  for  the  alternative  of  school  in 
the  event  of  unemployment  may  be  enforced  when  boys  are  con- 
cerned, it  is  practically  a  dead  letter  for  the  girls  of  the  district, 
because  they  may  always  put  forth  the  officially  honored  excuse  of 
being  "  needed  at  home,"  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  this  usually  means 
no  positive  training  and  many  hours  of  idleness  on  the  street. 
Omitting  the  185  who  succeeded  in  obtaining  some  kind  of  tempo- 
rary position  without  loss  of  time  after  leaving  school,  there  remain 
115  for  whom  the  work  certificate  meant  a  license  to  be  idle  regard- 
less of  the  fact  that  they  had  failed  to  complete  even  the  seventh 
grade  of  the  elementary  school.  The  defect  lies  both  in  the  law 
and  in  the  lack  of  machinery  for  enforcing  it.  As  long  as  children 
are  allowed  the  independent  possession  of  their  working  papers,2 
educational  oversight  in  a  large  city  is  impossible. 

4.  THE  FAMILY  NEED 

The  customary  method  of  considering  the  entire  income  of  the 
family  at  the  time  when  the  child  leaves  school,  in  order  to  deter- 
mine the  extent  to  which  the  economic  pressure  is  responsible  for 
his  leaving,  is  likely  to  be  misleading  when  applied  to  the  people 
of  the  stockyards  district.  Many  families  will  show  for  a  period  of 
two  or  three  years  an  abundant  income  due  entirely  to  the  wages 
of  several  children.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  these  same 
children  did  not  grow  up  with  this  plenty,  nor  are  they  going  to 
remain  long  at  home  to  add  to  the  common  purse.  The  older  son 
who  may  be  earning  ten  dollars  a  week  makes  larger  personal 
demands  as  he  nears  his  majority,  and  resents  being  asked  to  con- 
tribute what  he  considers  an  undue  share  to  the  family  for  no  other 
reason  than  to  prolong  the  education  of  a  girl.  The  older  daughter, 
who  is  more  capable  of  such  sacrifices,  finds  it  difficult  to  surrender 

1  One  of  the  truant  officers  of  wide  experience  says  it  is  impossible  to  make  a  successful 
court  case  of  the  girl  after  she  is  fourteen  years  of  age.    If  the  mother  appears  and  swears 
that  she  needs  the  child  at  home,  the  judge  accepts  this  as  "  being  employed." 

2  The  Ohio  law  recognizes  this  fact  effectively.    In  case  the  child  is  either  dismissed  or 
voluntarily  withdraws,  the  employer  is  obliged  to  return  the  work  certificate  to  the  superin- 
tendent of  schools.    The  return  of  the  certificate  at  once  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
child  is  not  employed  and  must  be  followed  by  the  truant  or  other  special  officer. 


472  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

her  desire  for  social  pleasures  to  a  kind  of  training  for  the  younger 
children  which  she  did  not  herself  receive.  The  small  sums  a 
mother  may  earn  by  taking  in  either  washing  or  boarders  are  often 
needed  to  meet  some  unusual  drain  upon  the  family,  like  sickness 
or  burial  expenses.  The  income  derived  from  rentals  is  usually 
applied  on  the  mortgage  and  does  not  count  in  the  apparent  surplus, 
for  at  all  times  the  need  of  keeping  up  the  payments  on  a  house 
outweighs  the  need  of  keeping  a  child  in  school.  The  following 
tables  present  the  wage-earning  power  of  the  head  of  the  family  as 
the  important  steady  economic  factor  in  the  lives  of  the  500  girls 
under  consideration.  For  the-men  here  represented  there  has  been 
little  variation  in  wages  during  the  past  eight  or  ten  years  except 
that  due  to  the  irregular  employment  common  to  the  neighborhood. 
That  is,  the  men  who  are  now  recorded  at  two  dollars  a  day  and 
less  have  been  steadily  in  the  ranks  of  those  who  can  never  command 
more  even  when  opportunities  to  work  are  abundant,  and  who  have 
never  had  a  year  of  "  full  time."  Wage  earners  above  this  level  in- 
clude the  more  skilled  workmen  who  have  had  fairly  steady  employ- 
ment. Those  considered  "  successful  "  can  depend  upon  an  income 
of  $825  a  year  and  more.  This  last  group  is  made  up  of  skilled 
workmen,  foremen,  and  small  merchants  (including  saloon  keepers), 
who  have  made  financial  gains  since  they  came  to  the  neighborhood. 

TABLE    III.     THE    ECONOMIC    POSITION    OF    THE     HEADS1    OF 

FAMILIES  WHO  ALLOWED  THREE  HUNDRED  GIRLS  TO  LEAVE 

SCHOOL  BEFORE  COMPLETING  THE  SEVENTH  GRADE 

NUMBER  OF  WOMEN*  WAGE 

62 Irregular  :  $i  a  day  and  less 

NUMBER  OF  MEN 

112 Below  $2  a  day 

24 $2  a  day 

47 $2.01  to  $2.60  a  day 

21 Successful 

1  There  is  not  an  exact  correspondence  between  the  number  of  heads  of  families  and 
the  number  of  girls,  since  some  families  furnished  more  than  one  girl. 

Although  no  effort  was  made  to  study  racial  characteristics,  the  following  figures  showing 
the  nationality  of  the  father  given  by  the  300  girls  are  suggestive  :  Poles,  70  ;  Germans,  89  ; 
Irish,  51  ;  Bohemians,  43  ;  miscellaneous,  27  ;  Slovaks,  20. 

2  The  woman's  wage  is  difficult  to  estimate.   The  figures  do  not  mean  that  she  never  earns 
above  $i  in  a  given  day.   When  the  woman  is  thrown  upon  her  own  resources,  her  average 
earnings  are  usually  between  $5  and  $6  a  week. 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     473 

TABLE    IV.     THE    ECONOMIC     POSITION    OF    THE    HEADS1    OF 

FAMILIES  WHO  ALLOWED  TWO  HUNDRED  GIRLS  TO  COMPLETE 

EIGHT  GRADES 

NUMBER  OF  WOMEN  WAGE 

25 Irregular:  $i  a  day  and  less 

NUMBER  OF  MEN 

37 Below  $2  a  day 

17 $2  a  day 

47 $2.01  to  $2.60  a  day 

63 Successful 

The  contrast  needs  little  comment.  If  it  is  necessary  for  the 
head  of  the  family  to  command  with  a  fair  degree  of  regularity  over 
$2  a  day  in  order  to  keep  the  children  in  school,  then  less  than 
26  per  cent  of  the  first  group  should  be  expected  to  do  it.  That 
this  wage  is  one  of  the  important  determining  factors  seems  evident 
from  the  58  per  cent  of  the  second  group  who  are  above  the  $2-a- 
day  limit.  The  remaining  42  per  cent  represent  families  where 
ambition  conquered  poverty,  where  the  mother  took  on  the  added 
burden  of  a  supplementary  wage  earner,  or  where  the  girl  was  able  to 
complete  her  course  either  below  or  close  to  the  age  of  fourteen  years. 

5.  OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS  UNDER  SIXTEEN  YEARS  OF  AGE 

The  little  girls  of  the  stockyards  district  are  found  in  the  factory, 
the  bookbindery,  the  department  store,  domestic  service,  the  sew- 
ing trades,  typewriting  and  stenography,  and  occasionally  in  the 
laundry.  The  factory  positions  are  those  in  which  the  quick  and 
delicate  touch  of  the  girls'  fingers  are  required.  These  include 
wrapping  or  packing  all  small  articles,  like  soap  and  toilet  prepara- 
tions, confectionery,  chewing  gum,  crackers,  and  chipped  beef,  or 
tending  some  of  the  simpler  machines  similar  to  those  of  a  box 
factory.  The  bookbindery  offers  only  mechanical  work  like  sorting 
and  folding,  or  operating  a  simple  machine.  The  laundry  has  a 
few  easy  positions  like  shaking  out  clothes  and  marking  them,  but 
the  other  handwork,  as  well  as  the  operation  of  the  machines,  requires 
the  strength  of  the  older  girls.  The  department  store  stands  next 

1  The  following  figures  show  the  nationality  of  the  father  given  by  the  200  girls  :  German, 
61 ;  Bohemians,  58  ;  Irish,  48  ;  Poles,  13  ;  miscellaneous,  20. 


474  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to  the  factory  in  the  list  of  occupations  accessible  and  considered 
desirable.  Many  little  girls  have  a  nervous  dread  of  being  near  a 
factory  machine,  and  to  them  the  work  in  the  store  seems  easy  and 
attractive.  Here  there  are  places  as  cash  girl,  wrapper,  assistant 
in  the  stock  room,  or  inspector.  The  girl  under  sixteen  is  seldom 
found  in  the  position  of  clerk,  but  she  often  looks  with  envy  upon 
the  girl  behind  the  counter  and  clings  to  her  poor  little  job  with 
the  hope  of  advancement.  Domestic  service  and  the  sewing  trades 
furnish  the  ideal  opening  according  to  the  simpler  standards  of 
foreign  parents.  From  their  point  of  view  the  time-honored  house- 
hold occupations  of  women  may  be  practiced  outside  of  the  home 
with  dignity  and  a  fair  remuneration.  The  American-born  girl 
does  not  accept  this  standard.  Although  the  parents  sometimes 
prevail  with  the  younger  ones,  the  positions  of  the  older  girls 
prove  that  there  has  been  a  general  tendency  to  leave  domestic 
service  and  even  the  sewing  trades  to  the  immigrants.  These  last 
occupations  are  usually  regarded  as  the  time-serving  of  the  appren- 
tice who  is  learning  a  trade.  A  partial  truth  obscures  the  real  situ- 
ation, which  does  not  admit  of  any  positive  training  to  the  child  who 
is  "  minding  a  baby"  and  which  often  compels  girls  in  a  dressmak- 
ing establishment  to  spend  months  in  clipping  and  pulling  basting 
threads  or  in  delivering  packages  to  customers.1  The  undue  im- 
portance attached  to  the  office  position  has  been  mentioned.  This 
term  may  be  used  to  dignify  any  kind  of  indoor  routine  in  mer- 
cantile and  other  business  establishments,  from  folding  circulars 
and  addressing  envelopes  to  typewriting. 

It  is  difficult  to  classify  the  above  positions  either  with  reference 
to  the  relative  amount  of  skill  they  require  or  by  their  opportunities 
for  advancement.  With  the  possible  exception  of  stenography, 
typewriting,  and  some  requirements  of  the  office  position,  they  rep- 
resent what  is  by  common  consent  looked  upon  as  "  girls'  work." 
The  boy  is  not  found  in  these  positions  for  three  reasons  :  he  scorns 
the  low  wage  which  the  little  girl  endures  as  her  birthright ;  by 


1  A  girl  apprenticed  to  a  milliner  for  one  year  spent  her  entire  time  in  delivering  hats. 
A  Polish  woman  gave  a  tailor  $25  to  secure  for  her  daughter  a  year's  training  in  his  shop. 
At  the  end  of  six  months  the  girl  was  still  pulling  basting  threads  as  a  preliminary  to  the 
instruction  to  be  given  later. 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     475 

nature  he  cares  less  for  details  and  will  not  do  his  work  with  the 
same  niceness  and  dexterity ;  and  he  seldom  submits  to  the 
"  speeding-up  process  "  of  the  piecework  system  which  is  common 
in  factories  and  upon  which  the  possibility  of  increased  wages 
usually  depends.  The  greater  docility  of  the  girl  added  to  her  tem- 
porary attitude  toward  any  employment  renders  her  an  easy  victim. 
No  preparation  is  exacted  for  entrance  into  these  occupations,  little 
time  is  required  in  learning  the  simple  processes  or  duties  involved, 
and  few  of  them  lead  to  openings  calling  for  skill  beyond  that  of 
speed  or  mechanical  dexterity.  There  are  always  a  limited  number 
who  by  strength  of  character,  persistency,  or  the  native-  possession 
of  some  unusual  ability  may  rise  to  positions  of  responsibility.  To 
what  extent  the  above  occupations  open  such  opportunities  will 
be  revealed  in  the  records  of  the  older  girls. 

6.  THE  .RELATION  OF  WAGE  AND  OCCUPATION  TO  GRADE 

Although  the  first  position  a  girl  secures  is  so  often  a  matter  of 
accident,  the  relation  of  wage  and  occupation  to  grade  as  revealed 
in  the  following  tables  is  suggestive. 


TABLE  V.    GIRLS  BEGINNING  WORK  UNDER  SIXTEEN  YEARS 
OF  AGE,  SEVENTH  GRADE  NOT  COMPLETED 


BEGINNING  WEEKLY  WAGE  BY  OCCUPATION 

No.  OF 

GIRLS 

10.50 

$1.00 

$1.50 

$1.75 

$2.00 

$2.50 

$3.00 

$3.50 

$4.00 

$4.50 

$5.00 

$6.00 

Bindery     . 

9 

— 

— 

— 

I 

— 

— 

2 

I 

3 

I 

I 

— 

Store  1  .     .     . 

63 

— 

— 

I 

II 

— 

23 

16 

9 

2 

— 

I 

-- 

Domestic 

26 

— 

2 

I 

— 

9 

4 

6 

2 

2 

— 

— 

— 

Factory     .     . 

1  08 

— 



I 

— 

— 

i 

45 

II 

38 

4 

7 

I 

Laundry   . 

5 

— 



— 

— 

— 

— 

— 



I 

i 

3 

— 

Millinery  .     . 

5 

— 

3 

I 

— 

'  — 

i 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

Office  .     .     . 

13 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

2 

I 

2 

— 

7 

1 

Dressmaking 

29 

I 

— 

I 

— 

4 

3 

12 

3 

3 

— 

2 

— 

Total     .     . 

258 

I 

5 

5 

12 

13 

32 

83 

27 

51 

6 

21 

2 

1  There  is  an  interesting  story,  current  in  the  neighborhood,  of  the  morning  when  a  little 
group  of  cash  girls  who  had  been  working  for  $1.50  a  week  banded  together  and  refused  to 
continue  for  less  than  $2  a  week.  This  juvenile  strike  was  settled  by  a  compromise  which 
placed  the  wage  in  that  store  at  #1.75. 


476 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  VI.    GIRLS    BEGINNING  WORK    UNDER    SIXTEEN  YEARS 
OF  AGE,  EIGHTH   GRADE   COMPLETED 


BEGINNING  WEEKLY  WAGE  BY  OCCUPATION 

No.  OF 

GIRLS 

$1.00 

$1.50 

$2.00 

$2.50 

$3.00 

$3.50 

$4.00 

$4.50 

$5.00 

$6.00 

$8.00 

Bindery      .     .     . 

7 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

I 

2 

I 

I 

2 

— 

Store      .... 

28 

I 

— 

— 

4 

8 

4 

4 

2 

3 

2 

— 

Domestic   .     .     . 

7 

— 

I 

2 

I 

2 

— 

i 

— 

— 

— 

— 

Factory  .... 

6 

— 

— 

— 

— 

3 

i 

— 

— 

2 

— 

— 

Hairdressing  .     . 

i 

— 

— 

I 

— 

— 

— 

— 



— 



— 

Millinery    .     .     . 

3 

— 

I 

— 

— 

2 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

Office     .     .     .     . 

22 

— 

— 

— 

— 

I 

i 

4 

2 

IO 

4 

— 

Dressmaking  .     . 

22 

— 

— 

7 

— 

14 

— 

i 

— 

— 

— 

— 

Stenographer 

9 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

3 

5 

I 

Typist    .... 

2 

— 

— 

— 

— 



— 

— 



2 

— 

— 

Total.     .     .     . 

107 

I 

2 

10 

5 

3° 

7 

12 

5 

21 

13 

I 

Including  the  purely  mechanical  positions  of  the  bindery  and 
the  laundry  under  the  head  of  factory  work,  among  the  girls  who 
did  not  complete  the  seventh  grade  the  factory  and  the  department 
store  claim  185,  or  71  per  cent  of  the  whole  number.  Sixty-two, 
or  50  per  cent,  of  those  included  as  factory  workers  began  at  a  wage 
below  $4  a  week.  Fifty-five  per  cent  of  the  department-store  girls 
began  at  less  than  $3  a  week.  The  girls  in  the  sewing  trades  who 
could  begin  above  $3  are  exceptionally  clever  with  the  needle.  The 
office  position  of  this  group  does  not  mean  either  typewriting  or 
stenography.  The  alluring  wage  of  $5  or  $6  a  week  is  the  high- 
est point  ever  reached  by  the  girl  under  sixteen  in  work  of  this 
character.  In  the  total  of  258  girls,  178,  or  nearly  69  per  cent, 
began  at  a  wage  below  $4  a  week.  Only  1 1  per  cent  were  able  to 
begin  above  that  point. 

The  second  table  shows  the  marked  tendency  which  is  always 
found  in  the  eighth-grade  girl  to  get  away  from  factory  work  and 
seek  employment  where  she  thinks  she  is  holding  a  position  of 
higher  social  value.  The  factory  and  the  department  store  employ 
only  38  per  cent  of  the  whole  number.  Fifty-four  per  cent  are  in 
the  sewing  trades  or  in  office  positions.  The  domestic  helper  is 
also  represented,  due  to  the  influence  of  the  foreign  home.  In  the 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     477 


total  of  107  girls,  55,  or  51  per  cent,  began  at  a  wage  below  $4  a 
week.  Thirty-seven  per  cent  began  above  that  point. 

These  figures  disclose  the  general  trend.  Judging  solely  from 
the  beginning  wage,  the  eighth-grade  girls  can  earn  more  money. 
In  so  far  as  the  apprenticeship  and  the  office  may  lead  to  better 
opportunities  than  the  factory  or  the  store,  the  greater  number 
have  chosen  their  occupations  with  more  insight. 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  actual  money  value  of  the  girl's 
labor  from  beginnings  only.  The  child's  lack  of  judgment  and  love 
of  novelty  lead  to  frequent  changes,  and  many  seasonal  and  tempo- 
rary places  are  open  to  her.  Naturally  this  child  labor  is  the  first 
to  be  dispensed  with  in  the  dull  or  slack  season  of  any  industry. 
The  small  candy  packer  may  be  required  only  seven  or  eight  months 
of  the  year,  the  sewing  and  the  millinery  apprentice  in  the  fashion- 
able shop  gets  her  enforced  summer  vacation,  and  the  important 
little  office  girl  in  a  mail-order  house  is  often  laid  off  for  a  month 
after  the  advertising  circulars  have  been  sent  out.  Only  the 
department-store  girls  and  the  household  helper  seem  to  be  in  per- 
petual demand.  The  following  table  shows  the  real  money  value  of 
100  of  the  girls  whose  beginning  wage  is  given  in  Table  V.  These 
girls  were  selected  from  the  group  because  it  was  possible  to  follow 
their  ups  and  downs  for  a  year  with  a  fair  degree  of  accuracy.  More- 
over, they  represent  families  who  embrace  the  earliest  opportunity 
to  send  their  children  to  work  and  keep  them  employed.  The  weekly 
wage  is  estimated  on  the  basis  of  the  actual  amount  earned  by  the 
girl  during  the  first  year  after  leaving  school.  To  show  more  clearly 
the  exact  contribution  to  the  family  income,  the  amount  the  girl  was 
obliged  to  spend  each  week  in  street-car  fare  was  deducted. 

TABLE  VII.   AVERAGE  WEEKLY  CONTRIBUTION  TO  THE  FAMILY 

INCOME  OF  ONE  HUNDRED  GIRLS  DURING  A  WORKING-PERIOD 

OF  ONE  YEAR.    STREET-CAR  FARE  IS  SUBTRACTED 


AGE 

NUMBER 

$1.50 

$1.51-12.00 

$2.01-$2.50 

$2  .51  -$3.00 

$3.01-$3.50 

14-15   .... 
15-16  .... 

Total    .     .     . 

91 
9 

II 

32 

8 

32 
I 

II 

5 

IOO 

II 

40 

33 

II 

5 

4/8  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Thirty-three  of  these  children  were  driven  before  that  family 
specter,  the  mortgage  on  the  house. 

The  suggestion  that  girls  should  be  legally  forbidden  to  go  to 
work  under  sixteen  years  of  age  brings  out  the  old  argument  of  the 
family  need.  It  is  put  forth  by  thrifty  parents  and  local  politicians, 
by  employers  who  wish  an  excuse  for  accepting  children,  and  by 
charity  workers  struggling  with  the  family  problem  of  poverty. 
The  school l  has  accepted  the  argument  without  questioning  its 
real  value,  and  children  have  learned  to  make  use  of  it.  The  law 
determines  the  amount  of  the  widow's  pension  on  the  supposition 
that  the  fourteen-year-old  child  is  a  legitimate  wage  earner.  The 
ability  of  the  child  to  add  to  the  family  income  has  been  exaggerated 
and  overemphasized.  For  these  paltry  sums  they  have  been  forced 
to  exchange  schooltime  and  playtime,  the  natural  rights  of  the  child. 

7.  SOME  PHYSICAL,  MENTAL,  AND  MORAL  ASPECTS  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

We  have  as  yet  no  scientific  knowledge  of  the  physical  effects  of 
child  labor.  We  have  certain  recognized  standards  with  reference 
to  night  work  and  the  so-called  "dangerous  occupations,"  and  a 
widespread  public  opinion  that  up  to  the  age  of  fourteen  years 
children  should  be  allowed  to  develop  their  bodies  in  the  freedom 
of  the  play  activities  most  natural  to  them.  Of  the  exact  relation 
between  the  demands  of  the  industries  employing  little  girls  and  the 
actual  power  of  the  growing  child  to  meet  them  without  physical 
deterioration  we  know  nothing  with  the  certainty  based  upon  scien- 
tific study.  That  there  are  several  untabulated  bodily  injuries  which 
result  from  their  continuous  employment  in  any  one  of  the  present 
occupations  open  to  little  girls  in  the  city  of  Chicago  no  one  who 
has  observed  girl  labor  for  any  length  of  time  can  deny.  More  than 
one  half  of  these  children  who  have  come  under  the  observation  of 
the  writer  during  the  past  eight  years  have  been  nervous,  troubled 
with  headaches,  and  "tired  most  of  the  time."  This  is  a  small 
number  and  is  a  record  of  confessions  reluctantly  given,  for  it  is  a 

1  The  Fifty-eighth  Annual  Report  of  the  Board  of  Education,  city  of  Chicago,  for  the  year 
ending  June  30,  1912,  voices  the  common  sentiment  and  gives  the  need  in  the  home  as  a 
reason  for  not  recommending  an  amendment  to  the  Compulsory  Education  Law  forbidding 
the  employment  of  children  at  fourteen  years  of  age. 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     479 

significant  fact  that  until  the  working-girl  has  suffered  to  the  point 
where  she  can  no  longer  conceal  it,  she  will  seldom  admit  poor 
health.  "  I  am  always  well.  I  never  lose  time  from  sickness  "  are 
the  persistent  assertions  of  thin,  anaemic-looking  little  girls.  This 
is  a  natural  attitude  resulting  from  their  employment  in  industries 
which  are  usually  making  heavier  demands  upon  the  body  than 
upon  the  brain,  and  every  girl  soon  learns  that  the  one  thing  she 
must  not  confess  is  physical  weakness  of  any  kind.  That  the  very 
evident  lack  of  vitality  in  many  little  girls  was  not  due  to  any 
serious  organic  trouble  was  proved  by  the  number  of  cases  sent  to 
a  physician,  who  merely  prescribed  "rest"  or  "a  tonic,"  and  by 
the  rapidity  with  which  they  recovered  if  they  were  so  fortunate  as 
to  be  "  laid  off  "  for  a  few  weeks,  except  in  instances  of  extreme 
poverty,  where  the  mental  anxiety  more  than  offset  the  recuper- 
ative value  of  a  period  of  leisure.  However,  there  is  considerable 
evidence  that  the  intermittent  weeks  of  enforced  idleness  are  all 
that  save  the  majority  of  these  girls  from  an  earlier  and  a  more 
complete  physical  deterioration  than  apparently  takes  place. 

This  group  of  girls  furnishes  no  evidence  that  for  them  one  form 
of  occupation  had  been  better  or  worse  than  another  as  long  as  they 
were  employed  "  on  steady  time,"  that  is,  receiving  a  fixed  weekly 
sum  and  not  the  uncertain  wage  of  the  pieceworker.  The  most 
pernicious  side  of  factory  work  is  the  "  speeding-up  "  process  which 
strains  every  nerve  and  keeps  the  worker  on  a  rack  of  anxiety. 
Some  little  girls  acquired  a  premature  wisdom  as  a  result  of  their 
factory  experiences  and  refused  to  go  beyond  a  certain  fairly  com- 
fortable speed  limit  which  they  established  for  themselves  when  the 
nature  of  the  occupation  permitted  it  and  they  were  not  forced  to 
"  keep  up  with  a  machine."  Some  of  them  found  a  pleasurable 
excitement  in  discovering  just  how  "  comfortable  "  they  could  be 
without  losing  their  positions.  Girls  who  held  to  a  more  even  pace 
and  never  revealed  their  utmost  capacity  have  endured  the  piece- 
work system  with  less  injury  than  those  who  were  eager  to  respond 
to  pressure.  As  there  is  often  a  difference  of  two  or  three  dollars  a 
week  between  what  she  accepts  as  her  limit  and  what  she  can  do 
"  on  a  spurt,"  the  temptation  to  earn  more  money  may  be  accepted 
at  a  frightful  cost  of  nervous  energy.  Mothers  frequently  give  an 


480  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

additional  incentive  to  increased  speed  by  making  their  daughters' 
spending  money  and  even  necessary  clothing  depend  entirely  upon 
this  extra  sum.  It  is  difficult  to  reach  fair  conclusions  on  the  sub- 
ject of  piecework.  Employers  say  that  girls  "don't  hurt  themselves." 
Girls  testify  that  they  are  always  in  danger  of  having  a  cut  in  the 
rate  of  payment  for  a  certain  output  if  the  girls  who  represent  the 
highest  speed  begin  to  earn  "  too  much  money."  When  a  cut  in 
the  rate  is  made,  they  are  forced  to  increase  their  speed  or  accept  a 
lowered  wage.  Miss  Goldmark  concludes  that  although  the  system 
is  sound  in  theory  and  "  works  admirably  in  highly  organized  trades 
where  collective  agreements  assure  the  workers  fair,  fixed  rates,  it 
fails  among  the  most  helpless  workers,  who  most  need  to  be  pro- 
tected from  overpressure  and  the  inroads  of  fatigue.  With  them 
it  almost  inevitably  breeds  a  spirit  of  permanent  '  rush '  in  work, 
and  to  that  extent  it  is  physiologically  dangerous."  l  It  is  this 
"  rush  "that  the  American  temperament  cannot  endure.  Factories 
that  use  this  system  are  obliged  to  draw  upon  the  more  enduring 
vitality  of  the  hardy  immigrant. 

The  legal  hours  of  labor  are  eight  daily,  but  girls  who  seek  the 
down-town  factories  and  stores  must  allow  at  least  two  hours  in 
addition  for  street-car  rides.  As  they  are  obliged  to  go  and  return 
when  all  cars  to  and  from  the  stockyards  district  are  overcrowded, 
the  fatigue  of  standing  the  greater  part  of  the  time  must  also  be 
included  in  the  day's  work.  The  fact  that  local  department  stores 
can  secure  cash  girls  for  $1.75  a  week  is  due  in  part  to  the  number 
who  cannot  endure  the  nervous  strain  of  getting  down  town  and 
back  again.  The  daily  walk  and  the  warm  noon  meal  at  home  are 
all  health-preserving  factors,  but  as  there  are  comparatively  few 
local  opportunities,2  for  the  majority  this  street-car  ride  on  their 
feet  is  inevitable.  Of  the  365  girls  who  began  work  under  sixteen 
years  of  age  310  were  obliged  to  ride  distances  consuming  from 
two  to  two  and  one-half  hours  daily. 

The  noneducative  character  of  all  occupations  open  to  these 
children  is  not  the  only  negative  side  of  the  problem.  Here  again 

1  Josephine  Goldmark,  Fatigue  and  Efficiency,  p.  84. 

2  Judging  from  the  records  at  the  office  of  the  state  factory  inspector,  the  entire  packing 
industry  seldom  employs  at  any  one  time  more  than  100  girls  under  sixteen  years  of  age. 
These  positions  are  usually  filled  by  the  foreign  girls. 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     481 

there  is  no  proper  basis  for  exact  conclusions  in  regard  to  the  mental 
effect  of  the  child's  work  under  the  modern  conditions  of  industry. 
Yet  if  the  tendency  is  to  an  overstrain  and  fatigue  detrimental  to 
physical  growth,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  conclude  that  disastrous 
results  both  mental  and  moral  may  follow.  Girls  grow  dull  with  a 
routine  that  calls  for  no  exercise  of  brain  power,  and  the  general 
stupidity  of  which  many  employers  complain  is  increased  as  the 
months  go  by.  Noise  and  confusion,  the  whirl  of  factory  machines, 
or  the  distractions  of  the  department  store  make  consecutive  thought- 
processes  difficult,  and  the  unconscious  reaction  from  monotonous 
labor  is  a  desire  for  excitement  in  some  novel  form  —  the  moving- 
picture  show,  the  forbidden  saloon-hall  dance,  or  late  hours  with 
companions  on  the  street  after  the  day's  work  is  over.  The  fifteen- 
year-old  factory  girl  who  gave  as  her  excuse  for  going  to  the  five-cent 
theater  six  nights  in  the  week  her  need  of  "  something  to  make 
me  feel  rested  "  is  not  an  exaggerated  type  but  a  painful  illustra- 
tion of  the  lack  of  nervous  balance  which  is  all  too  common  among 
these  children.  Whether  such  an  unstable  condition  is  due  to 
purely  physical  or  to  mental  causes  it  is  often  difficult  to  say,  since 
for  many  girls  there  is  such  a  close  connection  between  health  and 
mental  attitude.  Girls  are  held  to  one  miserable,  distasteful  piece 
of  work  by  fear,  discouragement,  timidity,  or  the  lack  of  knowledge 
of  other  opportunities.  A  few  have  confessed  that  they  thought  all 
the  factories  down  town  made  candy  and  there  was  nothing  else 
for  little  girls  to  do  except  wrapping  and  packing  confectionery. 
Some  who  had  learned  a  single  simple  process  in  a  box  factory 
were  unable  to  adapt  themselves  to  other  positions  when  laid  off 
temporarily.  One  girl  insisted  that  "pasting  labels"  was  her 
"  trade  "  and  refused  to  consider  anything  else.  Another  said  she 
could  work  only  in  the  one  department  store  in  which  she  began. 
She  had  tried  others,  but  they  always  made  her  feel  "  strange  and 
queer."  Still  another  worked  a  full  year  in  fear  of  the  forewoman 
who  had  an  "  evil  eye  "  that  held  girls  to  their  work.  A  different 
type  of  girl  makes  a  continuous  effort  to  break  through  the  limita- 
tions of  her  enforced  occupation  by  changing  as  often  as  possible. 
These  changes  are  a  means  of  stimulation  which  the  girl's  nature 
demands.  Three  girls  who  were  chums  and  refused  to  be  separated 


482  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

had  worked  together  in  eleven  different  places  during  fifteen  con- 
secutive months.  For  them  the  mere  thought  of  steady  employ- 
ment had  grown  distasteful.  One  girl  flippantly  remarked  :  "  The 
new  boss  may  have  red  hair.  Anything  to  change  the  scenery." 
That  the  search  for  excitement  as  an  antidote  for  fatigue  and 
monotonous  labor  may  be  attended  by  grave  moral  dangers,  no  one 
can  doubt.  Girls  do  not  understand  this  abnormal  craving.  They 
are  caught  in  the  meshes  of  feelings  too  complex  for  their  untaught 
minds  to  comprehend.  Unfortunately  both  parents  fail  at  this  point. 
Many  endeavor  to  exercise  a  strict  surveillance  that  would  keep  the 
working  girl  at  home  in  the  evening  "  helping  mother  "  as  the  safest 
outlet  for  any  extra  energy  she  may  have.  The  diverse  attitude  on 
the  part  of  parents  and  children  in  regard  to  the  way  the  leisure 
time  should  be  filled  is  one  of  the  greatest  causes  of  family  clashing. 
Here  the  girl  usually  conquers.  Those  who  faithfully  hold  to  a 
difficult  and  uncongenial  occupation,  bringing  home  the  entire  wage 
to  the  family  and  submitting  to  an  almost  patriarchal  control  in 
other  matters,  will  demand  a  freedom  in  the  use  of  their  evening 
hours  before  which  the  foreign  parents  are  helpless.  "  She  is  a 
good  girl,"  said  the  Polish  mother.  "  She  brings  home  all  her 
money,  but  —  she  goes  out  where  she  pleases  nights  and  Sundays, 
and  we  can't  follow."  Ninety  per  cent  of  the  parents  admitted  that 
they  had  little  control  over  their  daughters  in  this  matter.  Many 
fiercely  condemned  "  the  American  life  "  which  made  such  insub- 
ordination possible.  This  unnatural  position  of  the  little  girl,  carry- 
ing the  premature  responsibility  of  the  wage  earner  and  asserting 
her  right  to  a  feverish  search  for  evening  pleasures,  is  forced  upon 
her  at  the  beginning  of  the  period  marked  by  physical  changes, 
rapid  growth,  and  the  dawn  of  sex  consciousness,  when  curious 
and  misunderstood  moods  are  dominant. 

8.  THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  EMPLOYER 

Interviews  with  employers  revealed  two  points  of  view :  (i)  the 
labor  of  girls  under  sixteen  years  of  age  is  of  doubtful  value  to 
the  employer  and  is  not  necessary  to  the  continuation  of  any  in- 
dustry ;  (2)  unless  girls  begin  to  work  under  sixteen  years  of 
age,  they  do  not  get  the  necessary  training  that  leads  to  their 


AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  THE  STOCKYARDS  DISTRICT     483 

advancement,  and  therefore  the  number  of  skilled  workers  among 
older  girls  will  be  depleted. 

The  first  point  of  view  has  four  causes  :  the  eight-hour  day,  the 
general  inefficiency  of  the  girls  who  apply  for  work,  the  introduction 
of  new  machinery,  and  a  growing  sentiment  against  the  employment 
of  children.  One  of  the  common  grievances  which  employers  find 
it  difficult  to  adjust  is  the  difference  in  hours  which  causes  jealousies 
and  petty  disturbances  among  girls  not  far  below  and  just  above  the 
age  of  sixteen  years.  The  girl  who  was  sixteen  last  week  will  work 
out  her  full  time  cheerfully  with  seventeen-year-old  companions, 
but  will  be  restless  and  dissatisfied  if  associated  with  a  group  six 
months  younger  having  the  advantage  of  an  earlier  dismissal.  A 
surprising  amount  of  supervision  is  needed  to  prevent  the  fraudulent 
record  of  the  child's  age,  for  which  the  employer  alone  is  held 
responsible  when  the  factory  inspector  appears.  The  inefficiency 
of  the  untrained  mass  which  is  recruited  from  the  ranks  of  children 
who  leave  school  below  the  seventh  grade  makes  them  a  financial 
loss  to  any  business  or  industry  during  the  period  required  for  their 
training.  The  amount  of  shifting  adds  to  the  work  of  the  employ- 
ment department.  The  superintendent  in  a  large  factory  using  over 
300  little  girls  stated  that  they  expected  to  register  five  girls  in 
order  to  secure  one  who  would  feel  any  responsibility  for  reappear- 
ing to  take  up  the  work  she  had  applied  for.  Even  the  girls  who 
have  finished  the  eighth  grade  are  childish  and  cannot  be  given 
places  of  responsibility  which  the  office  requires.  The  introduction 
of  machinery  is  displacing  the  need  of  many  a  small  pair  of  hands. 
The  inventions  for  covering,  gluing,  and  labeling  in  the  box 
factories  are  comparatively  new  and  are  pronounced  satisfactory. 
The  machine-dipped  chocolate  drops  look  almost  as  well  as  those 
covered  by  hand  and  are  in  greater  demand.  The  clever  devices 
for  closing  packages  with  the  unfeeling  points  of  a  machine  almost 
human  in  its  skill  are  a  monument  to  inventive  genius.  One  of 
the  largest  employers  of  child  labor  in  the  city  of  Chicago  said  : 
"  If  we  could  not  by  law  employ  the  girl  under  sixteen  years,  we 
should  find  some  way  to  make  the  machine  do  her  work." 

Finally,  there  appears  to  be  a  growing  sentiment  against  the 
employment  of  children,  in  spite  of  the  evidence  of  the  school 


484  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

census  taken  May  2,  1912,  which  gives  a  total  of  8923  girls  and 
8214  boys  under  sixteen  years  of  age  either  temporarily  or  per- 
manently employed  in  the  city  of  Chicago.  A  sentiment  is  a  diffi- 
cult thing  to  measure  in  figures  until  it  reaches  a  definite  expression 
in  legislation.  Yet  the  feeling  exists,  voiced  all  along  the  line  by 
the  head  of  the  firm,  the  superintendent,  the  business  manager, 
and  the  foreman,  often  in  the  face  of  the  actual  fact  that  the  prac- 
tical policy  of  the  business  or  the  industry  allowed  the  use  of  chil- 
dren. The  proposition  to  exclude  the  girl  from  early  employment 
met  with  a  quick  response  from  employers  who  look  at  the  boy 
from  a  different  point  of  view.  The  frankest  words  came  from  the 
president  of  a  large  manufacturing  establishment :  "As  an  employer, 
I  can  and  do  make  money  out  of  the  work  of  little  girls.  As  a  man, 
I  know  it  would  be  better  for  them  and  for  the  state  if  I  were 
forbidden  by  law  to  employ  them." 

The  second  point  of  view,  that  the  girl  must  get  her  training  for 
business  or  industrial  efficiency  by  going  to  work  at  the  earliest  age 
possible,  is  advanced  by  employers  who  find  temporary  help  a  con- 
venience and  by  those  who  wish  the  speed  and  skill  that  come  with 
the  repetition  of  a  single  highly  specialized  process.  They  are  look- 
ing for  a  very  limited  efficiency,  which  may  be  acquired  only  by 
practice  in  the  business  or  industry  calling  for  it,  and  they  know  that 
youth  is  the  golden  age  of  this  kind  of  skill.  They  do  not  ask  for 
a  longer  period  in  school  or  for  any  form  of  industrial  education  to 
fit  girls  for  their  positions.  "  Give  us  girls  who  are  quick,  bright, 
and  healthy,  and  we  will  do  the  training"  is  their  demand.  Their 
further  suggestion  that  the  supply  of  skilled  adult  workers  will  be 
lessened  if  girls  do  not  receive  this  early  training  is  without  proof. 

These  advocates  of  child  labor  could  not  fail  to  refer  to  the  family 
poverty  that  apparently  can  be  relieved  only  by  the  work  of  children. 
Three  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  they  engaged  girls  under  sixteen 
solely  because  the  families  represented  were  in  need.  And  yet  when 
it  came  to  the  final  question,  no  employer  would  admit  that  either  the 
business  or  the  industry  he  represented  rested  upon  so  slight  a  foun- 
dation as  the  labor  of  little  girls.  One  conclusion  at  least  seems  per- 
missible :  the  premature  employment  of  girls  under  sixteen  years  of 
age  is  not  necessary  to  the  continuation  of  any  business  or  industry. 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  WORKING-CHILD 
A  PLEA  FOR  EMPLOYMENT  SUPERVISION  IN  CITY  SCHOOLS 

BY  SOPHONISBA  P.   BRECKINRIDGE  AND   EDITH  ABBOTT,  DIRECTORS, 
DEPARTMENT  OF  SOCIAL  INVESTIGATION 

(From  a  Report  to  the  Chicago  Woman's  Club,  the  Chicago  Association  of 
Collegiate  Alumna?,  and  the  Woman's  City  Club) 

While  it  is  generally  known  that  the  Illinois  law  requires  that 
all  children  between  the  ages  of  seven  and  fourteen  shall  attend 
school  unless  excused  on  the  various  grounds  enumerated  in  the 
statute,  many  people  do  not  know  that  on  the  fourteenth  birthday 
the  child  may  demand  an  age  and  school  certificate  and  go  to  work, 
subject  of  course  to  the  limitations  of  the  Child  Labor  Law  upon 
his  hours  and  time  of  work  and  kind  of  employment,  and  subject 
also  to  the  provision  of  the  Compulsory  Education  Law  that,  until 
he  is  sixteen,  he  must  be. either  at  work  or  in  school.  Still  less, 
perhaps,  do  people  know  the  consequence  to  the  child  who  is  thus 
deprived  of  further  schooling  on  the  one  hand  and  made  to  assume 
the  heavy  burden  of  responsibility  on  the  other.  For  to  most  of 
these  children  leaving  school  means  much  more  than  a  loss  of 
opportunity.  It  means  being  placed  in  the  way  of  great  and  varied 
temptations  while  the  will  is  weak  and  the  mind  not  yet  intelli- 
gent. Work  is  not  always  easy  to  find,  and  desirable  work,  which 
offers  even  a  small  amount  of  training  and  awakens  ambition  and 
interest,  seems  hopelessly  scarce. 

Every  year  thousands  of  children  in  Chicago  take  advantage  of 
the  privilege  which  the  law  gives  them  and  leave  school  on  the 
very  day  when  they  reach  the  age  of  fourteen  and  can  legally  obtain 
their  working  papers.  On  this  day  the  child  is  suddenly  released 
from  the  discipline  of  the  school  and  thrown  on  his  own  resources 
to  find  a  job  in  any  way  he  can  and  to  become  an  independent 

485 


486  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

wage  earner  making  a  much-needed  contribution  to  the  family 
income.  This  sudden  transition  from  school  to  work  must  neces- 
sarily be  a  difficult  time  of  readjustment  for  the  child,  and  the 
question  of  the  kind  of  work  which  is  undertaken  is  one  of  serious 
importance.  The  first  job  or  the  first  year  of  work  will  often  have 
a  decisive  influence  on  his  whole  working  life,  and  may  make  or 
mar  his  character. 

There  are  many  important  questions  which  should  be  considered 
when  a  child  leaves  school  to  go  to  work,  such  as  the  kind  of  occu- 
pation to  which  he  is  best  adapted,  the  industry  which  holds  the 
best  promise  for  the  future,  how  to  find  the  employer  who  is  "good 
to  boys  and  girls"  and  is  willing  to  give  them  proper  training,  sym- 
pathetic oversight,  and  a  chance  for  promotion  in  the  shop  or  fac- 
tory, and,  finally,  the  critical  question  of  how  to  find  the  vacant  job 
which  most  nearly  answers  all  of  these  demands.  At  present  the 
child  faces  this  problem  quite  alone  and  unaided,  with  no  broader 
object  in  mind  than  that  of  an  immediate  contribution  to  the  family 
income.  His  parents  may  be  zealous  for  his  welfare,  but  they  are 
quite  unable  to  help  at  this  crisis  in  his  life.  For  the  boys  and  girls 
who  go  to  work  are  not  the  children  of  intelligent  skilled  working- 
men.  Men  in  skilled  trades  do  not  take  their  children  out  of  school 
at  fourteen,  for  they  know  that  a  boy  of  that  age  must  wait  two 
years  before  he  can  be  apprenticed,  that  the  girl  of  that  age  is  not 
strong  enough  to  work  and  not  yet  able  to  protect  herself,  and  that 
the  years  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  are  wastef ully  spent  by  the  child 
in  work.  These  boys  and  girls  who  go  to  work,  then,  are  children 
of  parents  who  are  either  very  poor  and  in  urgent  need  of  the  small 
wage  which  the  child  may  earn,  or  unintelligent  with  reference  to 
the  importance  of  further  education  and  therefore  not  willing  to 
sacrifice  their  standard  of  immediate  comfort  for  the  child's  future ; 
in  the  majority  of  cases  they  are  immigrants,  frequently  unable 
even  to  speak  our  language,  almost  uniformly  ignorant  of  industrial 
conditions,  and  quite  unable  to  advise  their  children  wisely  with 
reference  to  the  beginning  of  their  working  lives. 

The  result  is  that  at  the  age  when  children  in  a  well-to-do  family 
are  still  treated  as  children  and  are  never  allowed  to  make  any 
important  decision  about  their  future  careers,  the  boy  or  girl  in  a 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  WORKING-CHILI)         487 

poor  family  is  turned  loose  to  find  work  alone.  It  is  obvious  that 
these  children  are  not  competent  to  distinguish  the  good  employer 
from  the  bad  or  the  occupation  with  a  future  from  the  "  blind- 
alley  "  employment  that  leads  nowhere  and  leaves  them  stranded 
at  the  age  of  seventeen  or  eighteen,  not  merely  untrained  but 
demoralized. 

At  present  there  is  no  organized  effort  made  on  the  part  of  the 
community  to  protect  these  boys  and  girls  who  are  leaving  the 
schools  every  week  and  starting  forth  alone,  timid  and  eager,  on 
a  discouraging  hunt  for  a  first  job ;  no  serious  effort  is  being  made 
to  prevent  the  wastage  that  comes  from  the  child's  haphazard 
choice  of  a  job.  The  theory  has  been  that  the  responsibility  of  the 
school  to  the  child  comes  abruptly  to  an  end  when  he  obtains  his 
working  papers.  Picture  the  child  who  is  facing  the  problem  of 
finding  work.  A  boy  will  usually  trudge  through  the  business  or 
factory  streets  looking  for  the  magic  card  "  Boy  Wanted  "  in  the 
window  —  in  any  window,  without  regard  to  the  character  of  the 
work  or  of  the  employer ;  or  he  follows  the  more  demoralizing 
habit  of  loafing  about  the  newspaper  offices  in  a  crowd  of  idle  men 
waiting  for  the  most  recent  Want  Ads  to  appear.  Small  wonder 
that  after  he  gets  work  he  finds  it  hard  to  settle  down.  The 
young  girl  who  goes  forth  alone  to  hunt  a  job  may  find  much 
graver  perils  before  her.  It  is  only  necessary  to  recall  the  success- 
ful prosecution  in  1908  of  seventeen  men  and  three  women  who 
had  built  up  a  profitable  business  in  leading  astray  young  girls  in 
search  of  work  who  made  use  of  the  department-store  waiting  rooms 
to  read  advertisements  in  the  newspapers  and  to  rest  during  the 
intervals  between  unsuccessful  applications  for  jobs. 

The  difficulty  in  finding  work  means,  of  course,  that  a  child  usu- 
ally takes  the  first  job  that  is  offered  him,  without  any  regard  to  the 
industry,  occupation,  or  employer,  without  any  regard  to  his  interest 
in  the  work  or  his  fitness  for  it.  His  whole  future  may  be  decided 
by  the  merest  chance,  and  he  may  take  the  most  temporary  kind 
of  job  in  a  most  undesirable  place,  when  on  the  same  street  a  good 
firm  offering  permanency  and  every  opportunity  of  advancement 
may  have  been  looking  for  just  such  a  boy  or  girl.  It  is,  of  course, 
an  inevitable  result  of  this  careless  and  accidental  hunt  for  "  any 


488  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

kind  of  job"  that  temporary  jobs  are  frequently  taken  and  children 
easily  get  into  casual  "habits  and,  in  fact,  become  confirmed  "casual 
laborers  "  before  they  are  sixteen,  shifting  from  job  to  job  with  an 
interval  of  unemployment  between  each. 

It  is  now  becoming  generally  recognized  that  the  result  of  this 
neglect  of  the  child  by  the  school  and  by  the  community  during 
the  critical  period  between  fourteen  and  sixteen,  when  the  school- 
boy or  schoolgirl  suddenly  becomes  a  working  "  man  "  or  a  wage- 
earning  "woman,"  has  far-reaching  social  consequences  —  a  small 
army  of  boys  and  girls  going  into  the  street  trades,  which  are 
demoralizing,  and  into  occupations  and  industries  which  profit 
by  boy  or  girl  labor  but  have  no  responsibility  to  the  boy  and  girl 
beyond  the  weekly  wage,  no  care  for  their  health  or  training. 

Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  fact  that,  although  the 
law  gives  the  child  his  working  papers  at  fourteen  and  does  not 
provide  for  any  supervision  or  protection  during  the  critical  years 
which  follow,  still  the  law  does  not  entirely  take  its  hands  off.  It 
regulates  the  hours  of  labor  for  children  under  sixteen ;  it  at  the 
present  time  excludes  them  from  certain  physically  dangerous 
trades  and  doubtless  will  soon  exclude  them  from  morally  danger- 
ous trades  as  well.  Even  more  important,  perhaps,  is  the  provision 
of  the  Compulsory  Education  Law  that  boys  and  girls  between 
fourteen  and  sixteen  shall  not  be  absolutely  idle  but  that  they 
must  return  to  school  if  they  are  not  at  work. 

Unfortunately,  no  adequate  machinery  for  enforcing  this  provi- 
sion of  the  law  exists,  and  the  problem  of  the  child  between  four- 
teen and  sixteen  is  still  a  serious  one.  The  Parental  School  is 
restricted  to  the  care  of  boys  under  fourteen ;  there  is  no  similar 
institution  for  older  boys  and  no  provision  at  all  for  girls  who  refuse 
to  go  to  school.  The  last  report  of  the  Superintendent  of  Compul- 
sory Education  strongly  emphasizes  "  the  necessity  for  better  pro- 
vision for  the  correction  and  care  of  children  between  fourteen 
and  sixteen  years  of  age  who  are  beyond  parental  control  and  who 
prefer  idleness  to  school  attendance  or  employment.  The  only 
recourse  under  present  conditions  against  a  fourteen-year-old  truant 
who  has  committed  no  other  offense  than  truancy,  is  to  charge  him 
with  incorrigible  or  delinquent  conduct  and  ask  his  commitment 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  WORKING-CHILD         489 

to  the  John 'Worthy  School  or  St.  Charles.  The  former  is  a  prison 
school  where  the  worst  type  of  delinquent  boys  is  sent.  St.  Charles 
has  not  sufficient  capacity  to  provide  for  urgent  delinquent  cases. 
It  is  therefore  a  question  of  consistency  for  one  state  law  to  pro- 
vide for  compulsory  attendance  up  to  the  age  of  sixteen  while 
another  state  law — the  Parental  School  Law — provides  for  truants 
only  between  seven  and  fourteen  years,  and  bars  the  truant  between 
fourteen  and  sixteen."  1 

Ever  since  the  year  1905  the  Department  of  Compulsory  Edu- 
cation has  called  attention  in  every  succeeding  annual  report  to  the 
necessity  for  better  means  of  protecting  and  disciplining  boys 
between  fourteen  and  sixteen,  not  merely  because  they  become 
demoralized  themselves  but  because  they  encourage  smaller  boys 
to  become  truant  and  delinquent.2  As  a  result  of  a  recent  study  of 
the  statistics  of  the  Juvenile  Court  relating  to  delinquent  children, 
it  appeared  that  the  great  majority  of  boys  who  were  brought  to 
court  as  delinquent  were  boys  who  left  school  to  go  to  work  when 
they  were  fourteen.  After  that  time  they  were  often  out  of  work 
as  well  as  out  of  school  and  were  given  special  opportunities  to 
become  delinquent.  More  than  half  of  all  the  delinquent  boys 
brought  into  court  come  in  at  the  age  of  fourteen  or  in  the  two 
years  immediately  following  their  withdrawal  from  school.  If  the 
provision  in  the  state  law  which  requires  the  compulsory  school 
attendance  of  boys  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  who 
are  not  working  could  be  rigorously  enforced,  the  number  of  delin- 
quent boys  of  these  ages  would  undoubtedly  decrease.  There  is, 
however,  a  method,  which  might  be  adopted,  of  meeting  this  prob- 
lem, which  would  be  preventive  rather  than  corrective,  and  that 
is  for  the  school  to  assist  these  boys  in  finding  the  right  kind  of 
work.  It  would  seem  to  be  wiser  for  educational  authorities  to  take 

1  Chicago  Board  of  Education,  Fifty-seventh  Annual  Report,  "  Report  of  the  Superin- 
tendent of  Schools  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1911,"  p.  56. 

2  See  Chicago  Board  of  Education,  Fifty-first  Annual  Report,  1905,  in  which  the  fol- 
lowing statement  appears  in  the  report  of  the  Superintendent  of  Compulsory  Education : 
"  There  are  many  idle  boys  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  on  the  streets  of  Chi- 
cago. .  .  .   Many  of  these  boys  do  not  go  to  work  because  employers,  as  a  rule,  prefer  a  boy 
who  has  attained  the  age  of  sixteen  years  in  order  that  they  may  have  employees  whose 
employment  and  hours  are  not  regulated  by  the  Child  Labor  Law.   These  idle  street  boys, 
over  compulsory-education  age,  frequently  encourage  smaller  boys  to  become  truants  and 
delinquents." 


490  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

steps  to  help  children  to  get  the  right  kind  'of  work,  rather  than 
to  punish  them  for  being  idle. 

In  this  connection  we  should  like  to  quote  from  the  recent  report 
of  the  Department  of  Compulsory  Education  : * 

The  social  waste  in  a  boy's  life  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  often  deter- 
mines his  future  career  and  citizenship  [writes  the  Superintendent].  Many 
employers  do  not  want  a  juvenile  employee  under  sixteen  years  of  age;  they, 
cannot  become  apprentices.  Principals  do  not  care  to  have  the  irregular  attend- 
ance of  the  fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  pupil  who  alternates  between  school 
and  work  so  much,  seeking  employment.  These  older  boys  influence  younger 
ones  —  and  herein  lies  a  great  handicap  to  truant  officers.  It  accounts,  in  a 
large  measure,  for  the  increase  in  truancy  in  some  districts,  although  many  of  the 
fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  boys  are  repeatedly  taken  from  the  streets,  and  some 
remain  in  school.  There  is  no  central  juvenile-employment  agency,  and  condi- 
tions could  be  better  if  one  were  established,  to  expedite  the  employment  of  boys 
and  girls  as  soon  as  possible  after  they  secure  their  age  and  school  certificates. 

It  is  evident  too  that  if  work  is  recognized  by  the  law  as  the 
alternative  to  school,  it  should  be  on  the  ground  that  the  work  will 
give  the  child  the  needed  training  or  preparation  for  what  is  to 
come  after.  That  is,  the  implication  in  the  law  is  that  either  in 
school  or  in  work  will  be  found  the  preparation  for  that  later  period 
in  the  child's  life  in  which  the  law  wholly  ceases  to  exercise  con- 
trol. The  problem  of  adequately  protecting  children  who  leave 
school  to  go  to  work  has  then  three  important  aspects  :  (i)  the 
question  of  what  opportunities  for  employment  that  are  educational 
and  disciplinary  instead  of  demoralizing  are  open  to  children  of  four- 
teen and  fifteen  ;  (2)  the  question  of  devising  some  machinery  for 
ascertaining  good  vacancies  and  fitting  the  right  boy  or  girl  into 
the  right  job;  (3)  the  development  of  some  method  of  supervising 
the  boy  or  girl  after  a  job  has  been  found,  in  order  to  ascertain 
whether  the  job  proves  suitable  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  see  that 
the  child  is  supported  against  temptation  to  change  his  job  fre- 
quently on  the  other.  In  the  solution  of  this  problem  we  have  at 
once  an  important  duty  of  the  school  and  a  unique  opportunity  to 
render  a  most  difficult  and  delicate  service  to  the  child,  to  the  family, 
and,  in  the  long  run,  to  the  community,  in  saving  the  health  and 
character  of  the  working-child. 

i  Chicago  Board  of  Education,  Fifty-seventh  Annual  Report,  "  Report  of  the  Superin- 
tendent of  Schools  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1911,"  p.  56, 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  WORKING-CHILD         491 

EXPERIMENTAL  WORK  DURING  THE  YEAR  1910-1911 

In  the  autumn  of  1910  this  department  of  the  Chicago  School 
of  Civics  and  Philanthropy,  supported  by  a  grant  from  the  Russell 
Sage  Foundation,  undertook  a  study  of  truancy  in  Chicago.1  As 
one  phase  of  this  study  we  became  interested  in  the  problem  of 
the  children  between  fourteen  and  sixteen.  In  Chicago  during  a 
single  year  7978  boys  and  4560  girls  under  sixteen  years  of  age 
were  granted  working  certificates;  of  these  children  8985  were 
only  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  1557  had  not  yet  reached  the 
fifth  grade. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  in  Illinois  these  children 
are  required  by  the  Compulsory  Education  Law  to  be  either  at 
work  or  in  school,  but  that  there  is  no  provision  for  helping  chil- 
dren to  find  work  and  no  institution  to  which  they  can  be  sent  if 
they  refuse  to  return  to  school.  Attention  has  also  been  called  to 
the  fact  that  the  Parental  School,  an  admirable  institution  main- 
tained by  the  Board  of  Education  for  truant  boys,2  cannot  legally 
receive  any  boy  over  fourteen  nor  retain  any  boy  already  committed 
to  the  school  after  he  reaches  the  legal  working  age.  Here,  how- 
ever, as  in  the  ordinary  school,  nothing  is  done  to  help  the  boy 
find  suitable  work  or  to  make  the  transition  from  school  to  work 
easy  for  the  child.  The  plight  of  the  boy  discharged  from  the 
institution  merely  because  he  is  fourteen  and  therefore  a  legal 
wage  earner  is  apparent.  Boys  are  sent  to  the  Parental  School 
only  when  they  are  in  special  need  of  the  training  and  of  the 
disciplinary  life  which  that  school  is  so  well  equipped  to  provide. 
The  boy  so  released  when  he  has  no  job  in  sight  and  no  one  at 
home  able  or  interested  to  find  him  one,  is  in  grave  danger  of 
losing  all  that  the  school  may  have  done  for  him. 

These  Parental  School  boys  are,  therefore,  in  much  greater  need 
of  supervision  than  the  majority  of  children  who  leave  school  to 
go  to  work.  They  have  been  uncontrollable  at  school,  and  they 

1  This  study  was  undertaken  as  part  of  the  Juvenile  Court  inquiry  on  which  the  depart- 
ment had  been  engaged  for  several  years.   The  first  volume  dealing  with  the  results  of  this 
inquiry,  "The  Delinquent  Child  and  the  Home,"  is  now  in  press  and  will  shortly  be  issued 
by  the  Charities  Publication  Committee  for  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation. 

2  It  may  be  well  to  call  attention  here  to  urgent  need  for  a  similar  institution  for  truant 
girls  or  girls  who  are  incorrigible  at  school. 


492  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

come  for  the  most  part  from  homes  that  are,  to  say  the  least,  un- 
favorable to  their  right  development.  In  some  cases  they  come 
from  homes  in  which  the  father  drinks  or  in  which  the  mother  is 
shiftless  and  incompetent ;  in  a  few  cases  the  mother  herself  is  a 
drinking  woman  or  worse  ;  when  there  are  degraded  conditions  in 
the  home  the  degradation  is  accompanied  by  poverty ;  and  in  still 
other  cases  there  is  poverty  alone,  poverty  which  is  honest  and 
respectable  but  which  means  pressing  need  for  what  the  child  can 
earn.  It  was  found,  for  example,  in  a  study  of  truant  cases  last 
year,  that  out  of  579  boys  who  were  brought  to  court  for  the  first 
time  on  a  truancy  charge,  157  belonged  to  families  which  had  at 
some  time  been  on  the  records  of  the  United  Charities.  It  is  obvi- 
ous that  to  return  to  these  homes  children  released  from  all  effec- 
tive control  on  the  part  of  the  school  authorities  and  unaided  by 
any  sympathetic,  firm,  and  intelligent  guidance,  is  to  run  the  risk 
of  undoing  all  that  has  been  gained  by  sending  them  away.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  the  boy  can  be  persuaded  voluntarily  to  return 
to  school,  or  if  he  can  be  found  the  right  job  and  persuaded  to 
stick  to  it,  if  misunderstandings  with  the  foreman  can  be  explained 
and  adjusted,  if  there  is  someone  at  hand  to  give  him  encourag- 
ing and  sturdy  advice  when  he  wants  to  "  chuck  the  job  and  try 
something  new"  or  "loaf  for  a  bit,"  the  succeeding  months  may 
continue  the  discipline  and  right  development  begun  in  the 
Parental  School. 

These  children,  then,  who  according  to  the  statute  must  be  re- 
leased on  their  fourteenth  birthday  from  the  Parental  School,  have 
again  after  their  return  home  the  alternative  under  the  law  of  re- 
turning to  school  or  of  finding  a  job.  To  undertake  to  advise  these 
children  with  regard  to  their  choice  of  work  and  to  assist  them  in 
finding  jobs  if  they  were  unwilling  to  return  to  school  opened  an 
interesting  opportunity  to  combine  investigational  with  practical 
work.  To  attempt  to  understand  the  problem  of  employment  as 
they  faced  it  seemed  to  be  not  only  germane  to  our  truancy  inquiry 
but  likely  to  be  of  some  immediate  practical  value.  We  attempted 
to  serve,  in  short,  as  a  sort  of  employment  agency  for  these  boys, 
believing  this  to  be  one  of  the  best  methods  of  understanding  the 
questions  connected  with  their  finding  work,  the  kind  of  positions 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  WORKING-CHILD         493 

open  to  them,  the  ease  or  difficulty  of  finding  "  vacant  jobs,"  their 
treatment  by  the  employer,  and  their  conduct  in  work  after  they 
were  placed. 

In  other  words,  to  get  directly  from  and  with  them  the  em- 
ployment experience  of  these  boys  dismissed  frdm  the  Parental 
School  solely  because  of  their  age  seemed  relevant  to  an  inquiry 
into  the  adequacy  of  the  Compulsory  Education  Law,  the  effec- 
tiveness of  the  court  as  a  device  for  strengthening  the  school, 
and  the  reasonableness  of  accepting  "  lawful  employment "  as 
a  substitute  for  schooling  during  these  two  important  years  of 
the  child's  life. 

To  try  to  assist  boys  or  girls  in  finding  work  is  a  task  not  to  be 
lightly  undertaken.  It  means  not  only  a  thoroughgoing  investiga- 
tion into  opportunities  of  employment  open  to  children  under  six- 
teen but  a  careful  study  of  the  particular  child.  On  the  one  hand, 
it  means  interviews  with  employers  and  foremen  and,  on  the  other, 
interviews  with  the  child  before  he  leaves  school,  with  his  teachers, 
and  with  parents  in  the  home — interviews  which  give  as  complete 
information  as  can  be  gained  of  what  the  boy  wants  to  do  and 
thinks  he  can  do,  of  what  his  teachers  believe  him  to  be  fitted  for 
physically  and  mentally,  and,  most  important  of  all,  the  judgment 
of  his  parents,  their  hopes  and  fears  if  they  will  share  them,  and 
such  light  as  his  home  circumstances  and  relationships  throw  on 
the  possibilities  of  his  working  career.  This  is,  of  course,  only  half 
the  battle.  There  is  also  the  selection  from  among  all  of  the  avail- 
able jobs  that  can  be  found,  the  one  to  which  the  boy  seems  best 
adapted,  and  then  frequently  the  difficult  task  of  persuading  the 
boy  to  give  up  being  a  messenger  boy  or  some  other  wasteful  occu- 
pation on  which  he  may  have  set  his  heart,  convincing  the  parents 
perhaps  to  take  a  lower  wage  at  the  start  in  a  job  which  is  going 
to  mean  learning  as  well  as  earning,  and,  finally,  constant  com- 
munication with  the  boy  after  he  is  placed.  For  watching  the  ch'ild 
after  a  job  has  been  found  is  as  important  as  finding  the  job.  The 
temptation  to  leave  one  employer  and  "  try  another  "  is  in  the  air. 
Boys  give  up  their  jobs  on  the  most  trivial  pretexts  and  often  with- 
out telling  the  employer  they  intend  to  leave.  One  boy  left  a  good 
job  with  a  good  firm  and  became  a  telegraph  messenger  because 


494  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

he  did  not  like  the  shape  of  the  packages  he  was  asked  to  carry ; 
a  Bohemian  boy  left  a  shop  where  he  was  being  taught  a  trade 
and  went  into  a  large  factory  which  offered  only  unskilled  work  for 
either  men  or  boys,  because  he  resented  having  a  Polish  boy  in  the 
shop  and  said  it  was  nicer  when  he  was  "  the  only  boy."  Other 
boys  leave  because  they  like  a  change  and  can  usually  "  pick  up 
some  kind  of  work."  In  such  cases  it  is  often  possible  to  persuade 
the  employer  to  give  the  boy  another  trial,  to  show  the  boy  how 
much  he  may  gain  by  working  steadily  for  the  same  firm,  and  to 
explain  to  the  parents  the  dangers  of  casual  habits.  The  task  is 
not  a  simple  task.  It  involves  often  many  interviews,  much  firm 
but  gentle  dealing  with  boy  and  parents,  and  close  cooperation  with 
employer ;  but  it  also  means  a  knowledge  of  the  chaos  by  which 
fourteen-year-old  children  are  allowed  to  enter  the  wage-earning 
market  unguarded  and  unguided,  which  is  worth  all  it  costs.  The 
effort  to  find  good  places  for  boys  or  girls  who  leave  school  to  go 
to  work  shows,  as  nothing  but  direct  practical  experience  can  show, 
the  great  dearth  of  educational  or  disciplinary  work  for  children 
under  sixteen.  It  shows  in  the  most  unmistakable  terms  that  the 
serious  study  of  this  question  is  the  duty  of  the  schools,  unless 
they  are  willing  to  sit  by  and  take  no  notice  as  the  child  goes 
forth  to  unlearn  what  the  school  has  taught. 

It  was  realized,  of  course,  that  the  same  problem  presented  itself 
to  the  fourteen-year-old  girls  who  are  leaving  -school  to  go  to  work, 
and  that  the  same  method  would  be  of  even  greater  value  in  the 
case  of  girls  than  of  boys  because,  few  as  are  the  opportunities  of 
an  industrially  promising  kind  for  boys,  they  are  fewer  for  girls, 
since  most  employments  for  women  to-day  are  in  fact  "blind-alley," 
or  "dead  end,"  employments.  Moreover  the  problem  of  school 
attendance  for  girls  is  one  to  which  much  less  attention  has  been 
given.  The  number  of  girls  whose  attendance  is  so  irregular  or 
whose  conduct  so  bad  as  to  call  for  action  on  the  part  of  the  Com- 
pulsory Education  Department  is  almost  negligible,  and  these  are 
not  brought  into  the  Juvenile  Court.  There  is  no  Parental  School 
for  girls.  We  therefore  had  no  opportunity  to  undertake  in  con- 
nection with  our  Juvenile  Court  inquiry  the  same  investigational 
experiment  for  girls  which  we  undertook  for  the  Parental  School 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  WORKING-CHILD         495 

boys.  But  by  the  intelligent  cooperation  of  three  women's  organi- 
zations, the  Chicago  Woman's  Club,  the  Chicago  Association  of 
Collegiate  Alumnae,  and  the  Woman's  City  Club,  this  work  was 
made  possible.  Through  their  joint  gift  we  were  enabled  to  obtain 
for  four  months  the  service  of  a  special  investigator  who  was  pecu- 
liarly fitted  for  the  work.  Miss  Davis  had  been  engaged  with  the 
department  in  an  earlier  study  of  the  delinquent  wards  of  the  court, 
and  had  been  especially  skillful  and  successful  in  obtaining  data  con- 
cerning delinquent  girls  and  in  understanding  the  needs  and  diffi- 
culties of  those  girls.  She  had  more  recently  been  for  two  years 
in  the  Illinois  Children's  Home  and  Aid  Society,  in  charge  of  the 
work  for  homeless  girls,  and  she  came  directly  from  that  position 
to  this  undertaking.  She  seemed  to  have  the  training,  sympathy, 
experience,  and  resourcefulness  needed  in  this  work ;  and  the 
results  of  her  brief  inquiry  will,  we  believe,  justify  the  confidence 
placed  in  the  department  by  the  three  cooperating  organizations 
and,  in  turn,  the  confidence  of  the  department  in  her. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  school  year,  as  the  knowledge  of  trade 
conditions  accumulated  and  the  connection  with  good  employers 
became  gradually  established,  we  were  able  to  take  care  of  a  very 
considerable  number  of  children  sent  to  us  by  the  settlements  who 
knew  of  our  experimental  work,  and  by  the  United  Charities  and 
some  other  organizations.  In  particular,  especially  handicapped 
children  were  sent  to  us  —  a  one-armed  girl,  a  lame  boy,  a  deaf- 
and-dumb  girl,  and  undersized  or  delicate  children  who  were  in 
work  that  was  too  hard  for  them  or  unsuitable  for  other  reasons. 

A  few  illustrations  will  perhaps  be  of  interest  in  showing  that 
the  "  better  job  "  did  not  always  mean  lower  wages,  though  when- 
ever possible  it  meant  a  chance  to  learn  and  a  chance  of  promotion 
as  a  result  of  steady,  faithful  work  : 

Emma  C ,  a  girl  of  fifteen,  who  had  finished  the  seventh  grade,  had 

been  employed  in  a  department  store  as  "  inspector  "  earning  $2.50  a  week. 
She  was  a  capable,  promising  girl,  and  employment  was  found  for  her  in  a 
braiding  and  embroidery  shop  where  she  is  learning  hand  and  machine  em- 
broidering and  where  she  earns  $5  a  week.  Her  sister,  a  bright  girl  of  six- 
teen and  an  eighth-grade  graduate,  who  had  been  working  in  a  department 
store  for  nine  months  as  "  wrapper  "  and  earning  $4.50  a  week,  was  placed  in 
an  office  position  where  she  is  earning  $6  a  week. 


496  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Lena  S ,  a  little  girl  of  fourteen,  who  had  finished  the  sixth  grade  and 

who  knew  how  to  sew,  had  found  a  job  for  herself  in  a  tailor  shop  "  finishing 
pants"  at  $2.50  a  week.  She  was  placed  in  a  Michigan  Avenue  shop  where 
good  needlewomen  are  in  demand,  at  an  initial  wage  of  #4  a  week. 

Elizabeth  B ,  a  bright  little  girl  of  fourteen,  had  "  done  well "  in  the 

seventh  grade  and  should  have  gone  on  to  the  eighth,  but  her  father  was  an 
epileptic  and  she  was  the  eldest  of  eight  children.  On  the  day  she  was  four- 
teen, therefore,  she  became  the  "sole  support  of  the  family."  She  was  sent 
to  us  by  the  United  Charities  from  a  place  where  she  had  been  earning  $3.50 
a  week  folding  circulars,  and  she  was  placed  in  the  filing  department  of  a  large 
commercial  agency  where  she  was  paid  in  the  beginning  $4  a  week.  In  six 
months  she  was  earning  $5  a  week,  and  the  forewoman  reports  that  she  is 
learning  typewriting  in  her  "  spare  time  "  and  is  going  to  make  a  good  office 
assistant. 

Steve  H ,  who  was  sent  by  the  United  Charities,  was  an  eighth-grade 

graduate  and  another  "  sole  support "  of  a  family  of  eight,  in  this  case  deserted 
by  the  father.  The  boy  was  sixteen  years  old,  extremely  small  for  his  age,  and 
was  "  carrying  boards  "  in  a  box  factory,  earning  $6  a  week.  He  was  a  very 
eager,  ambitious  boy,  and  as  he  was  sixteen  years  old  it  was  not  difficult  to  find 
a  chance  for  him  as  a  compositor's  apprentice  with  a  good  printing  firm.  His 
initial  wages  in  this  case  were  only  $4,  but  it  was  not  difficult  to  raise  a  small 
fund  to  pay  the  family  the  difference  between  his  apprenticeship  wage  and  his 
box-factory  wage  until  he  had  been  "  raised."  He  has  been  in  the  shop  nearly 
a  year  now,  his  wages  have  been  raised  three  times,  he  enjoys  his  work,  and 
his  foreman  speaks  well  of  him. 

Albert  Z ,  who  is  fifteen  and  had  finished  sixth  grade,  worked  for  a 

year  in  a  box  factory  "  carrying  boards  "  and  earned  $4  a  week.  Fortunately 
he  was  laid  off  when  the  work  became  slack.  Employment  was  found  for  him 
in  a  printing  shop  where  he  has  an  opportunity  to  learn  the  trade  and  where 
his  initial  wage  was  $4.50  a  week. 

James  R ,  a  bright  Bohemian  boy  of  fifteen,  who  had  finished  the 

seventh  grade,  worked  in  a  department  store  nearly  two  years  as  messenger 
boy.  He  had  begun  at  $4  a  week,  and  his  wages  had  not  been  raised  during 
that  time.  He  left  because  he  "wanted  to  learn  something."  He  was  placed 
in  a  printing  shop  where  he  is  learning  the  trade  and  where  his  initial  wage 
was  $4.50  a  week. 

Salvatore,  an  Italian  boy  of  fourteen,  the  "sole  support"  of  a  fatherless 
family  of  six,  was  sent  to  us  because  he  was  "  working  too  hard  "  and  often 
"  fell  asleep  at  his  work."  He  was  working  in  a  department  store  as  a  "  cash 
boy,"  earning  $2.50  a  week,  and  earning  an  extra  $2  by  working  on  a  milk 
wagon  from  three  to  six  in  the  morning.  It  was  possible  to  place  him  with  an 
engraving  company  where  the  prospects  to  learn  the  trade  were  good  and 
where  his  wages  were  $4.50  a  week  at  the  start. 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  WORKING-CHILD         497 

In  the  month  of  June  we  undertook  to  interview  and  to  place 
all  of  the  children  who  were  planning  to  go  to  work  at  the  end  of 
the  school  year  in  the  Washburne  School,  one  of  the  largest  schools 
on  the  West  Side.  Office  hours  were  kept  in  a  neighboring  settle- 
ment, the  Henry  Booth  House,  which  generously  offered  space, 
and  the  principal,  Mr.  Thompson,  was  glad  to  cooperate  by  send- 
ing the  children  to  us  and  by  giving  his  personal  advice.  Besides 
interviewing  the  children,  the  homes  were  all  visited,  and  when 
the  parents  seemed  able  to  keep  the  child  in  school  longer,  they 
were  strongly  urged  to  do  so. 

By  way  of  summary  a  few  brief  tables  are  presented  to  show  the 
practical  results  of  this  very  humble  attempt  of  the  department  to 
serve  as  an  informal  employment  agency  for  these  boys  and  girls. 
During  the  year  254  children,  80  girls  and  174  boys,  were  inter- 
viewed.1 Of  the  boys  50  were  still  in  the  Parental  School  but 
about  to  be  discharged  when  interviewed.  The  following  tables 
summarize  the  actual  work  done. 


WORK  FOR  BOYS  WHO  WERE   INTERVIEWED   OCTOBER  1,   1910, 
TO  OCTOBER  1,  1911 

Number  of  boys  placed 59 

Number  who  secured  work  themselves  or  through  parents  or  friends  29 

Number  returned  to  school 43" 

Number  for  whom  nothing  could  be  done 6 

Number  who  moved  away  and  were  lost 3 

Number  now  waiting  for  positions 34 

Total  number  of  boys  interviewed 174 

The  ages  of  these  boys  were  as  follows : 

AGE  NUMBER  OF 

Bovs 

14  years 105 

1 5  years 31 

1 6  years 1 8 

Over  1 6  years 20 

Total 774 

l  Miss  Davis  was  assisted  in  this  work  by  Miss  Edith  Foster.  Further  assistance  in 
the  preparation  of  the  report  has  been  given  by  Miss  Grace  P.  Norton  and  Miss  Maud 
E.  Lavery. 


498  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

LIST    OF    INDUSTRIES    OR    OCCUPATIONS    IN    WHICH    59    BOYS 

WERE  PLACED 

Commercial  engraving       14 

Printing 13 

Bookbinding 6 

Metal  trades 9 

Electrical  work 3 

Commercial  lithography 2 

Jewelry  work  or  manufacturing i 

Box  factory 2 

Woodworking        i 

Farm  work 4 

Office  work 3 

Clipping  bureau i 

Total "59 

WORK  FOR  GIRLS  WHO  WERE  INTERVIEWED  OCTOBER  1,  1910, 
TO  OCTOBER  1,  1911 

Number  of  girls  placed 49 

Number  who  secured  work  themselves  or  through  parents  or  friends  4 

Number  returned  to  school 7 

Number  for  whom  nothing  could  be  done 5 

Number  now  waiting  for  positions 15 

Total  number  of  girls  interviewed 80 

The  ages  of  these  girls  were  as  follows : 

.        AGE  NUMBER  OF 

GIRLS 

14  years 23 

1 5  years 21 

1 6  years 23 

Over  1 6  years 13 

Total ,     .     .     .     .  ~8o 

LIST   OF    INDUSTRIES    OR   OCCUPATIONS    IN   WHICH   49  GIRLS 

WERE  PLACED 

Sewing  trades  . 5 

Engraving 9 

Bookbinding 18 

Office  work 10 

Millinery 2 

Weaving 3 

Sample  work 2 

Total "49 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  WORKING-CHILD         499 

It  should,  perhaps,  be  pointed  out  that  we  have  never  been  will- 
ing to  assume  the  responsibility  of  placing  girls  in  offices  where 
only  one  or  two  girls  were  employed.  We  have  used  large 
commercial  houses  where  there  were  a  large  number  of  girls, 
where  the  dangers  of  isolated  employment  were  avoided,  and 
where  there  was  at  the  same  time  greater  opportunity  for  a  bright 
girl  to  "work  up." 

In  connection  with  the  problem  of  girl  employment  which  has 
been  of  special  interest  to  the  members  of  the  organizations  which 
provided  for  the  appointment  of  Miss  Davis  and  the  special  inves- 
tigation into  girls'  trades,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  in  addition 
to  the  information  obtained  and  the  experience  gained  there  have 
been  results  of  a  definitely  practical  kind :  first,  the  data  gathered 
by  Miss  Davis  were  placed  at  the  service  of  Miss  Wells,  principal 
of  the  new  Lucy  L.  Flower  Technical  High  School,  so  that 
various  questions  connected  with  the  curriculum  of  that  school 
could  be  determined  with  reference  to  trade  opportunities  for 
girls ;  and  second,  at  the  request  of  Mrs.  Young,  the  super- 
intendent of  schools,  Miss  Davis  has  been  authorized  by  the 
School  Management  Committee  of  the  Board  of  Education  to 
hold  office  hours  in  the  school  building  in  order  to  advise  the 
girls  who  have  entered  upon  a  course  of  technical  training 
there  with  reference  to  their  more  intelligent  and  deliberate  selec- 
tion of  a  trade  and  their  more  advantageous  placing  at  the  end 
of  their  course. 

The  results  of  the  investigation  which  Miss  Davis  has  carried 
on  are  presented  here  in  a  separate  report.  It  is  hoped  that  the 
information  which  is  published  will  be  valuable  in  many  practical 
ways.  Details  given  regarding  wages,  hours,  possibilities  of  train- 
ing, and  prospects  of  advancement  should  prove  useful  not  only 
to  teachers  but  to  the  directors  of  girls'  clubs  in  settlements,  to 
district  visitors  in  the  offices  of  the  United  Charities,  and  to  other 
persons  who  come  in  close  contact  with  girls  whose  home  condi- 
tions force  them  to  leave  school  early  and  go  to  work.  Information 
is  also  given  as  to  shop  conditions,  the  kind  of  girls  who  go  into 
the  trade,  their  nationality  and  age,  and  such  practical  details  as 
could  be  obtained. 


500  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Some  word  should  perhaps  be  said  with  regard  to  the  limited 
scope  of  Miss  Davis's  report.  It  is  in  every  respect  very  incom- 
plete ;  it  covers  only  a  small  number  of  trades,  and  in  most  cases 
the  reports  for  these  trades  are  based  on  a  relatively  small  number 
of  interviews.  A  complete  report  on  the  opportunities  of  employ- 
ment open  to  girls  would  mean  an  investigation  into  all  trades  in 
which  women  are  employed.  The  report  which  Miss  Davis  sub- 
mits represents  the  work  of  a  single  investigator  for  four  months 
only.  If  it  is  possible  to  continue  her  work,  we  look  forward  to 
the  publication  of  a  more  complete  report  at  a  later  date.  It  seemed 
worth  while,  however,  to  publish  a  preliminary  report  in  order  that 
such  information  as  had  been  gained  might  be  of  immediate  serv- 
ice. It  should  be  pointed  out  too  that  further  investigation  will 
make  possible  not  only  an  increase  in  the  number  of  trades  for 
which  information  is  available  but  more  complete  and  detailed 
reports  of  the  trades  which  have  already  been  covered  in  this 
preliminary  investigation. 

A  word  should  perhaps  be  said  with  regard  to  the  basis  on  which 
the  trades  included  in  this  report  were  selected.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  this  investigation  went  hand  in  hand  with  a  search  for 
actual  places  for  girls  who  wanted  work.  Since  we  could  not  cover 
the  entire  field,  .we  started  with  trades  which  seemed  to  promise 
fairly  good  openings,  trades  which  we  had  reason  to  believe  offered 
some  skilled  work  and  opportunities  of  advancement.  In  general, 
we  omitted  the  large  factory  industries,  such  as  box  or  candy  mak- 
ing, where  girls  easily  found  work  for  themselves  and  where  the 
work  for  girls  seemed  to  be  largely  unskilled.  Some  trades  were 
selected  because  of  a  definite  application  from  a  girl  who  wanted 
that  special  kind  of  work.  For  example,  when  a  girl  who  wanted 
to  learn  hairdressing  was  sent  to  us,  we  found  it  necessary,  in  try- 
ing to  find  a  shop  where  we  could  place  her,  to  visit  thirty-eight 
different  hairdressing  establishments. 

We  have,  as  the  report  shows,  interviewed  80  girls,  44  of  whom 
were  under  sixteen  years  of  age.  The  question  that  we  had  to  face 
was  what  was  the  best  that  could  be  done  for  the  girl,  considering 
her  school  grade,  her  health,  and  her  general  ability.  In  many 
cases  —  one  might  almost  say  the  majority  of  cases  —  the  girls 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  WORKING-CHILD         501 

under  sixteen  seemed  hopelessly  unfitted  for  any  good  place.  They 
needed  to  be  taught  and  trained,  and  yet  we  were  asking  employ- 
ers to  pay  for  their  labor.  At  the  time  this  investigation  was  made, 
there  were  no  day  trade  classes  in  Chicago  for  girls  of  this  sort. 
In  order  to  find  out  what  the  possible  value  of  a  day  trade  school 
might  be,  the  question  was  definitely  put  to  each  employer  or  em- 
ployer's representative  who  was  interviewed,  "  How  far  would  a 
trade  school  be  of  value  in  the  industry  you  represent?"  We  have 
published  the  answers  to  this  question  in  some  detail  because  there 
is  sure  to  be  in  the  near  future  a  larger  provision  in  the  way  of 
day  trade  classes  for  girls,  and  any  information  relating  to  the  sub- 
ject will  be  useful.  The  opening  of  the  new  Lucy  L.  Flower  Tech- 
nical High  School  will  undoubtedly  serve  as  a  pioneer  and  guide 
to  those  interested  in  industrial  training  for  girls.  Hull  House  is 
about  to  offer  a  day  class  in  trade  dressmaking,  which  will  be  open  to 
girls  who  are  too  ill  equipped  to  enter  the  Technical  High  School. 
It  is  for  girls  of  this  sort  that  a  special  appeal  must  be  made  — 
girls  who  have  left  school  from  the  lower  grades,  who  are  not  fit 
to  go  to  work,  but  whose  parents  need  to  utilize  their  slight  wage- 
earning  capacity  at  the  earliest  possible  moment.  While  the  par- 
ents of  such  girls  are  unwilling  to  let  them  go  back  to  school 
unless  they  are  given  some  definite  preparation  for  work,  permis- 
sion could  often  be  obtained  for  them  to  attend  a  day  trade  class 
which  would  give  in  six  months  a  definitely  better  chance  of 
entering  a  trade  and  of  earning  more  money  than  they  would 
otherwise  have.  In  large  settlements  where  the  girls  would  also 
have  the  benefit  of  day  classes  in  cooking,  gymnastics,  or  danc- 
ing, which  would  give  them  discipline  and  training  of  another 
sort,  the  girl  would  undoubtedly  have  a  much  better  chance  in 
the  industrial  world. 

A  study  of  Miss  Davis's  report  shows  that  even  in  the  best 
trades  there  is  very  little  educational  work  for  girls  under  sixteen. 
Employers  do  not  like  to  be  bothered  with  an  arrangement  which 
means  having  part  of  the  force  on  a  different  time-shift.  The 
thorough  study  of  this  question  will,  we  believe,  demonstrate  the 
fact  that  machinery  is  taking  the  place  of  the  unskilled  work  of 
children  in  modern  industrial  and  business  organization,  and  that 


502  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

it  will  be  much  better  for  industry  in  the  long  run  if  children  spend 
the  years  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  in  definite  preparation  for 
their  industrial  life.  If  there  is  so  little  work  that  is  good  for  them 
to  do,  is  it  not  the  duty  of  the  community  to  face  the  fact  and 
make  some  provision  for  these  two  years  that  are  being  wasted  in 
the  lives  of  thousands  of  children  who  are  every  year  going  into 
unprofitable  work  ?  This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  questions 
connected  with  trade  or  industrial  training  for  girls.  It  may  be 
worth  while,  however,  since  it  is  so  closely  connected  with  ques- 
tions before  us  here  in  Chicago,  to  quote  from  a  very  remarkable 
report  of  the  Education  Committee  of  the  London  County  Council 
submitting  some  reports  on  women's  trades  compiled  by  the  late 
Mrs.  Oakeshott  when  she  was  inspector  of  women's  trade  and 
technical  classes  for  the  London  County  Council.  In  considering 
opportunities  which  a  girl  had  of  learning  a  trade  in  the  workroom, 
the  need  of  trade  classes  for  girls  became  apparent.  Entirely  apart 
from  the  fact  that  it  was  difficult  to  find  suitable  apprenticeships 
for  girls,  it  was  pointed  out  that  the  trade  school  had  certain 
definite  advantages. 

"The  trade  school,"  Mrs.  Oakeshott  explained,  "aims  at  mak- 
ing a  worker  of  a  kind  such  as  the  workroom  rarely  if  ever  can 
make.  By  means  of  its  carefully  selected  trade  teacher  and  Ad- 
visory Committee  of  Experts,  it  gives  the  child  a  thorough  all- 
round  rudimentary  knowledge  of  the  industry  she  is  to  enter.  That 
is  the  basis  of  the  trade  school.  And  if  this  were  all,  a  carefully 
arranged  apprenticeship  might  be  as  good.  The  trade  school  has 
other  objects  in  view.  The  girl  who  enters  such  a  school  spends 
two  years  more  in  all  the  wholesome  influences  of  school  life.  The 
child  of  fourteen  is  not  at  once  placed  in  a  workroom  where  hours 
of  work  are  from  8.30  A.M.  to  7.30  P.M.  She  spends  these  two 
years  gaining  strength  morally  and  physically  while  her  industrial 
training  is  secured.  The  whole  spirit  of  the  school  is  intended  to 
encourage  the  esprit  de  corps,  which  is  lacking  in  women  engaged 
in  industrial  work.  General  education  is  continued  and  the  sub- 
jects chosen  are  those  which  are  calculated  to  quicken  the  intelli- 
gence and  interest  of  the  girl  in  the  active  life  she  is  to  enter. 
Artistic  training  in  relation  to  each  trade  is  given,  and  the  young 


THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  WORKING-CHILD         503 

worker  has  an  opportunity  of  experimenting,  planning,  and  trying 
to  produce  original  work.  In  the  trade  school  it  does  not  matter  if 
the  material  is  spoiled,  provided  a  lesson  has  been  learned.  Lastly, 
it  gives  a  hint  that  when  the  drudgery  has  been  mastered  there 
is  responsible  work  to  come.  And  this  is  where  workroom  training 
often  deadens  keenness  and  interest.  It  does  not  exist  to  teach ; 
it  exists  to  get  work  turned  out  as  quickly  and  as  cheaply  as 
possible.  Therefore  the  worker  is  often  kept  to  the  one  process 
that  she  can  perform  quickly  and  well ;  thereby  originality  and 
interest  are  frequently  killed." 

Other  countries  are  considering  this  problem  with  greater  seri- 
ousness ;  and  trade  and  technical  schools,  continuation  schools, 
juvenile-labor  exchanges,  juvenile  advisory  committees,  apprentice- 
ship and  skilled-employment  committees  have  been  successfully 
organized.  In  order  that  the  opportunity  before  us  in  Chicago 
may  be  more  evident,  a  report  upon  the  experiments  now  under 
way  in  Germany  and  England  is  included  in  this  report. 

In  conclusion  we  may  perhaps  repeat  that  the  fourteen-  or  fif- 
teen-year-old child  is  very  helpless  and  ill  equipped  to  enter  alone 
and  unguarded  upon  her  wage-earning  life ;  the  parent  is  unable 
to  advise  or  guide ;  the  private  employment  office  is  a  wholly  un- 
suitable agency ;  and  up  to  the  present  the  school  has  been  inac- 
tive. This  means  that  there  is  a  rich  opportunity  for  constructive 
work  and  a  clear  field  of  service.  We  feel  ourselves  most  fortunate 
in  having  been  allowed  to  suggest,  through  this  investigation,  the 
great  need  of  undertaking  the  delicate  task  of  employment  super- 
vision ;  the  fact  that  it  is  a  proper  function  of  the  school ;  and  the 
method  which  we  believe  to  be  the  right  method,  involving  as  it 
does  close  cooperation  with  the  parents,  the  employers,  and  the 
other  agencies  which  have  been  concerned  in  the  problems  of  the 
individual  family  and  based  on  accurate  knowledge  of  the  wage- 
earning  opportunities  and  industrial  possibilities  for  children  of 
this  group. 


WHAT  WE  NEED  TO  KNOW  ABOUT  OCCUPATIONS 

BY  DR.  CHARLES  R.  RICHARDS,  DIRECTOR,  COOPER  UNION, 
NEW  YORK 

(An  Address  delivered  at  the  Second  National  Conference  on  Vocational 
Guidance,  New  York,  1913) 

The  points  which  I  want  to  emphasize  represent  simply  an 
attempt  to  bring  out  what  seem  to  me  to  be  the  fundamentals 
necessary  in  studying  the  industries,  the  fundamental  data  which 
we  must  know  in  order  to  move  forward  in  this  matter  of  voca- 
tional guidance.  The  data  that  I  have  here  are  arranged  in  these 
main  headings  :  the  economic  data ;  what  might  be  called  the 
physical  data,  concerning  the  occupation  and  the  influence  of  the 
occupation  upon  character  ;  then,  separately  considered,  the  oppor- 
tunities presented  by  an  occupation  for  beginners;  and  finally  the 
relation  of  the  occupation  to  school  training. 

Let  me  take  these  up  serially  with  you,  first  on  the  side  of  the 
economic  data.  One  of  the  things  that  we  need  to  know  is  the 
size  of  the  industry  as  represented  in  the  country  and  its  impor- 
tance. On  the  other  hand  we  have  to  know  the  size  of  the  occu- 
pation in  the  locality.  Oftentimes  very  large  occupations  and 
industries  are  purely  local,  and  in  the  matter  of  guidance,  as  well 
as  the  matter  of  education,  we  must  take  in  such  a  fact.  We  have 
here  in  the  city  of  New  York  tremendous  concentration  of  the 
clothing  industry  !  We  have  in  various  cities  of  this  state  and  New 
England  a  like  concentration  of  the  textile  industries.  We  have 
such  things  as  the  manufacture  of  paper  boxes  and  the  manufacture 
of  books,  which  are  to  a  very  large  extent  localized  industries. 

A  further  point :  Is  this  industry  a  growing  or  a  diminishing 
field  ?  Is  it  something  that  is  passing  out,  or  is  it  growing  ?  This 
point  has  been  referred  to  by  the  chairman.  There  are  many 
industries  that  in  the  last  twenty-five  years  have  been  entirely 

504 


WHAT  WE  NEED  TO  KNOW  ABOUT  OCCUPATIONS     505 

transformed  through  machinery  from  the  handwork  stage  to  the 
mill  and  factory  stage.  (I  must  draw  my  illustrations  mainly  from 
industries  rather  than  from  other  large  fields  of  occupations.)  It 
was  n't  many  years  ago  that  there  were  a  great  many  cabinet- 
makers' shops  in  New  York  City,  very  largely  carried  on  by  Ger- 
mans. There  are  very  few  to-day.  The  cabinetmaking  business 
has  become  almost  entirely  a  mill  industry.  Carriage  building  is 
another  instance  where  the  occupation  is  changing  from  a  skilled 
trade  to  a  factory  industry.  Blacksmithing  and  carpentry  in  the 
old  sense  are  becoming  of  much  less  importance.  Of  course,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  are  many  things  which  are  increasing  rapidly  ; 
the  whole  field  of  electric  manufacture,  printing,  construction  in 
iron  and  steel,  etc. 

Is  the  occupation  overcrowded,  or  is  there  a  scarcity  of  workers, 
particularly  of  high-grade  workers  ?  Of  course  this  point  means 
a  good  deal  in  regard  to  opportunity.  Jewelry,  for  instance,  appears 
to  be  a  very  desirable  trade.  And  yet,  when  we  look  into  it,  we 
find  there  is  generally  a  scarcity  not  only  of  high-grade  workers  in 
jewelry  but  of  ordinary  workers,  the  reason  being  that  jewelry  to 
a  considerable  extent  is  a  seasonal  trade.  We  find  that  in  trades 
like  engraving  there  is  always  a  scarcity  of  high-grade  workers, 
due  to  the  fact  of  the  very  long  period  of  training  required. 

Is  the  occupation  stable,  or  is  it  tending  to  frequent  change  ? 
I  have  already  touched  upon  the  changing  nature  of  our  industries 
to-day.  Cooperage,  for  instance,  only  a  few  years  ago  was  a  matter 
entirely  of  handwork.  To-day  barrels  are  not  made  by  hand.  Their 
manufacture  has  become  entirely  a  matter  of  machinery,  almost 
automatic  in  its  character.  Millinery  and  the  making  of  dress  and 
fur  goods  are  constantly  changing  in  the  methods  and  character 
of  work. 

The  hours  per  day  enter  into  the  situation.  Also  the  question 
of  whether  overtime  is  a  large  feature,  as  it  is  in  many  trades  in 
this  city,  notably  in  the  clothing  trade. 

Is  the  payment  by  time-work  or  piece-work  ?  Is  the  trade 
seasonal  or  steady  —  another  point  that  has  been  touched  upon 
by  the  chairman.  This  last  consideration,  of  course,  affects  many 
of  the  trades,  especially  the  trades  of  the  large  cities,  the  great 


506  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

metropolitan  centers,  and  is  affecting  us  here,  especially  in  the 
whole  field  of  the  clothing  trades. 

The  next  point,  the  different  grades  or  kinds  of  work  represented 
in  an  occupation.  That  is  the  thing  that  some  day  or  other  we  have 
got  to  know  very  much  more  about  than  we  know  to-day.  We 
roughly  classify  occupations  as  we  look  at  them.  We  think  of 
machine  work  as  a  high-grade  occupation,  representing  one  of  the 
highest  degrees  of  skill,  one  of  the  most  desirable  occupations, 
paying  very  good  wages.  But  machine  work  to-day  is  not  an  occu- 
pation representing  one  kind  of  work.  It  is  an  occupation  or  indus- 
try tremendously  subdivided,  so  that  there  are  grades  and  grades 
of  work,  and  in  almost  any  machine-operated  establishment  there 
are  to-day  comparatively  few  high-grade  and  high-paid  workers 
and  a  large  number  of  comparatively  low-paid  and  low-grade 
workers.  This  set  of  facts  is  going  to  be  one  of  the  hardest  for 
us  to  obtain  to  the  point  that  they  become  common  knowledge 
and  that  we  may  understand  the  economic  opportunities  of  an 
industry  in  a  more  discriminating  fashion  than  we  can  to-day. 
Shoe  manufacture  is  one  of  the  classical  instances  of  a  subdivided 
industry.  There  are,  they  say,  about  one  hundred  and  one  differ- 
ent operations  through  which  the  shoe  passes,  and  there  are  con- 
sequently one  hundred  and  one  different  branches  and  different 
grades  of  workers  in  the  shoe-manufacturing  industry.  A  depart- 
ment store,  on  the  other  hand,  represents  another  grade  of  voca- 
tion tremendously  subdivided.  We  must  know  the  names  of  these 
different  branches,  the  kind  of  work  that  is  performed  in  each, 
and  the  average  wages  paid  in  it.  We  ought  to  know  something 
about  the  relative  numbers  that  are  in  the  different  lines  of  work, 
to  be  able  to  judge  how  much  is  represented  by  the  high-grade 
and  desirable  positions,  and  how  much  by  the  undesirable. 

And  in  this  connection  we  need  to  know  something  that  we 
know  very  little  about  to-day,  we  need  to  know  the  qualities  that 
are  necessary  for  success  in  a  particular  occupation :  whether 
strength  and  endurance  are  the  things  that  are  needed,  whether 
intelligence,  mental  alertness,  quickness,  accuracy,  dexterity  of  hand, 
nimbleness  and  carefulness,  or  artistic  feeling  are  demanded  ;  what, 
in  other  words,  are  the  things  that  mean  success  and  efficiency. 


WHAT  WE  NEED  TO  KNOW  ABOUT  OCCUPATIONS     507 

So  much  for  the  economic  side.  Of  course  this  whole  economic 
division  might  be  greatly  amplified.  I  have  tried  to  touch  here 
only  upon  what  seems  to  be  some  of  the  basic  points  in  this  data ; 
and  I  shall  return  to  that  field  when  taking  up  the  opportunities 
for  beginners. 

As  to  the  physical  and  hygienic  conditions  of  the  occupation, 
the  chairman  has  referred  to  these  conditions  as  being  a  vital  ele- 
ment for  our  consideration.  The  question  whether  the  work  is 
performed  inside  or  outside  of  doors  is  an  item  on  this  side.  The 
building  trades  and  the  work  of  transportation  represent,  of  course, 
outside  work,  as  compared  with  the  great  bulk  of  the  industries 
of  to-day  which  are  performed  inside  factories  and  stores,  and 
which  are  sedentary  in  their  nature. 

Does  the  worker  sit  or  stand  for  long  periods  without  shifting, 
or  does  the  work  involve  moving  about  ?  In  this  connection  often 
arises  the  question  whether  the  strength  and  health  of  a  particular 
individual  are  adjusted  to  things  like  clerical  work,  things  like 
brush  making,  which  involve  sitting  at  the  bench  continually. 

Is  the  occupation  conducted  in  close,  crowded,  or  basement  rooms, 
or  in  airy,  well-ventilated  rooms  with  windows  ?  No  one  who  is  not 
well  fortified  on  the  side  of  strength  and  health  can  continue  in 
that  condition  very  long  and  maintain  strength  and  health  when 
working  under  the  conditions  in  which  at  least  part  of  the  clothing 
and  machine-operating  trades  in  this  city  are  conducted,  where  the 
work  is  often  performed  in  very  crowded  and  in  very  close  quarters. 

Does  the  work  involve  exposure  to  heat  or  cold,  or  sudden 
changes  in  temperature  ?  Of  course  the  question  of  laundries 
and  many  industrial  operations  come  in  there. 

Is  time  allowed  for  dinner  ?  Are  there  opportunities  for  obtain- 
ing warm  meals  ?  Does  the  work  involve  eye  strain  ?  And  does 
the  work  involve  severe  nervous  strain  ?  Miss  Josephine  Goldmark 
has  brought  to  us  in  that  remarkable  book  of  hers  the  effect  of 
certain  of  the  modern  types  of  industry  on  this  matter  of  eye  strain 
and  the  matter  of  nervous  strain,  and  their  relation  to  fatigue  and 
their  relation  to  efficiency.  The  work  of  the  telephone  operator, 
the  work  of  fine  needlework,  and  the  work  of  fine  machine  work, 
like  watchmaking,  all  are  involved  in  this  question. 


508  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Does  the  work  involve  special  dangers  from  machinery  ?  Of 
course  our  factory  laws  to-day  are  increasingly  taking  care  of  this 
side,  and  there  is  less  cause  for  anxiety.  And  yet,  even  to-day, 
there  still  exist  marked  dangers  from  machinery  in  certain  trades  ; 
as  in  rubber  mills,  where  the  rolls  represent  that  great  danger,  and 
in  sawmills,  as  well  as  in  rolling  mills  for  iron  and  steel. 

Is  the  work  carried  on  in  an  atmosphere  with  much  dust  in  it  ? 
Flour  mills  and  grinding  and  polishing  establishments,  of  course, 
represent  dangerous  possibilities  in  this  direction,  although,  espe- 
cially in  flour  mills,  the  matter  of  dust  is  being  taken  care  of  and 
removed  by  machinery  in  a  way  that  was  unthought  of  a  few 
years  ago. 

Are  there  special  unhealthy  conditions,  such  as  constant  wetting 
of  hands  or  contact  with  poisonous  materials,  such  as  lead  paint  ? 
The  number  of  unhealthy  employments  is  much  smaller  to-day 
than  in  former  times,  but  the  report  of  the  Illinois  State  Com- 
mission on  Occupational  Diseases  indicates  how  serious  are  the 
dangers  in  this  direction. 

Influence  of  the  occupation  upon  the  character  and  the  growth 
of  workers.  This  consideration,  which  has  also  been  touched  upon 
by  the  chairman,  is  a  matter  that  we  are  only  beginning  to  think 
of  these  last  few  years.  Is  the  occupation  stimulating  to  growth, 
or  is  it  deadening  in  its  effect  ?  Is  the  worker  surrounded  by  con- 
ditions that  are  stimulating  to  ambition,  stimulating  to  mental 
alertness,  or  are  the  conditions  such  that  he  stands  still  ?  Is  the 
task  monotonous  and  dreary,  or  is  it  something  which  is  quicken- 
ing and  educating  in  its  daily  influence  ?  Of  course  the  whole 
field  of  industry  differentiates  very  markedly  in  this  respect. 
Trades  like  printing  and  high-grade  machine  work  present  stimu- 
lating, quickening  influences.  Many  other  occupations  where  the 
work  involves  simply  the  feeding  of  an  automatic  machine,  like 
many  of  the  stamping  factories ;  some  of  the  lower-grade  work  in 
the  textile  mills,  especially  in  cotton  mills ;  candy  dipping ;  and  paper- 
box  making — of  course  represent  the  other  extreme.  I  think  we  are 
probably  going  to  think  more  and  more  of  this  side  as  we  continue 
to  study  occupations,  and  to  see  whether  the  conditions  present 
influences  favorable  or  unfavorable  for  the  growth  of  the  worker. 


WHAT  WE  NEED  TO  KNOW  ABOUT  OCCUPATIONS     509 

Are  the  influences  surrounding  the  work  morally  deteriorating  ? 
That  point  has  been  touched  on  also  by  the  chairman.  We  in 
New  York  City  have  seen  in  the  last  few  years  the  investigation 
of  the  messenger  service,  and  consequent  legislative  action  which 
has  resulted  in  an  entire  change  in  the  city  of  New  York  of  the 
night  messenger  service. 

Next  to  the  last  division  of  my  paper  is  the  analysis  of  the  oppor- 
tunities for  beginners  in  occupations,  questions  concerning  which 
it  is  particularly  desirable  to  study  and  inform  ourselves  about  in 
this  matter  of  vocational  guidance. 

First,  the  different  ways  in  which  beginners  enter  the  occupa- 
tion. I  had  the  opportunity  this  noon  of  a  conference  with  half  a 
dozen  gentlemen  representing  the  clothing  trades  of  New  York 
City.  One  of  the  remarks  made  at  that  conference  by  one  of  these 
gentlemen  was  the  fact  that  there  is  no  regular  way  of  entering 
the  clothing  trades  of  this  city.  Young  men,  young  women,  girls 
enter  the  clothing  establishments,  and  the  whole  field  of  machine 
operating,  with  no  definite  status  and  very  little  training.  They 
come  into  no  definite  position,  but  they  shortly  obtain  the  work 
which  their  own  ability  entitles  them  to.  They  find  themselves, 
and  the  employer  finds  where  they  belong.  This  condition  of 
things  is  of  course  tremendously  characteristic  of  the  whole  bulk 
of  American  labor,  of  American  industry.  We  have  very  little  of 
the  orderly  procedure  of  Germany  or  France  or  of  England  in 
regard  to  the  matter  of  entering  the  industries.  The  great  mass 
of  young  people  come  into  it  year  after  year  in  miscellaneous 
fashion  as  beginners  and  find  themselves.  They  come  in,  to  a  large 
extent,  as  helpers  or  tenders  of  machines.  Take  the  whole  field  of 
commercial  work.  What  a  great  variety  of  conditions  of  entrance 
are  presented  there.  Beginners  come  in  as  office  boys,  with  working 
papers,  they  come  in  as  high-school  graduates,  they  come  in  as 
college  graduates.  There  is  no  one  way,  but  an  infinite  variety  of 
the  ways,  in  which  occupations  are  entered  upon. 

Are  untrained  beginners  wanted  by  employers  ?  That  is  a  ques- 
tion that  reacts  very  decidedly  upon  the  question  of  schooling.  In 
any  city  we  find  in  quite  a  number  of  trades  that  the  employer  is 
much  disinclined  to  taking  untrained  beginners.  In  many  trades 


510  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

the  whole  supply  of  workers  is  fed  from  outside  of  the  city.  Their 
training  is  obtained  in  the  small  towns  and  cities  of  the  state,  and 
they  come  to  New  York  with  some  degree  of  industrial  training 
and  obtain  employment  because  of  that  fact.  In  some  branches 
of  the  clothing  trade  it  is  impossible  for  untrained  beginners  to 
obtain  a  foothold.  Even  in  the  electrical  workers,  it  is  not  easy 
for  a  boy  to  get  a  position  without  any  practical  experience  or  some 
knowledge  of  electricity  obtained  in  school. 

Average  age  at  which  beginners  enter  the  occupation  ;  preferred 
age  from  employers'  standpoint.  Occupations,  of  course,  vary  con- 
siderably in  this  matter,  but  here  in  America  we  are  coming  pretty 
much  to  the  age  of  sixteen  as  the  minimum  age  for  entrance  to 
the  desirable  and  the  high-grade  occupations.  Not  that  a  great 
many  boys  and  girls  of  fourteen  are  not  going  into  work,  and  not, 
of  course,  that  there  are  not  many  that  must  go  to  work  at  this 
age.  There  are,  on  the  other  hand,  a  few  instances  where  beginners 
cannot  enter  the  trades  until  considerably  later.  In  foundry  work 
there  are  practically  no  beginners  taken  under  eighteen  years  of 
age.  Practically  no  one  goes  into  cigar  making  in  New  York  City 
that  is  under  twenty-one  years  of  age.  In  steam  and  hot- water 
fitting,  on  account  of  the  strength  required  in  the  work,  eighteen 
to  nineteen  is  the  minimum  age  at  which  beginners  enter. 

The  wages  at  entrance.  This  is,  of  course,  one  of  our  necessary 
facts.  Are  the  wages  small  at  first,  increasing  slowly  to  high  wages, 
or  are  they  comparatively  large  at  first,  but  with  a  small  rate  of 
increase  ?  Where  there  is  a  systematic  provision  inside  of  the 
trade  for  teaching  and  learning,  as  in  apprenticeship,  the  begin- 
ning wage  is  always  extremely  small,  $4  or  $5  a  week  ;  but  there 
is  the  opportunity  for  gradual  increase  up  to  high  wages.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  highly  specialized  industry,  based  on  piecework 
and  much  automatic  machinery,  is  the  occupation  where  the  wages 
are  relatively  high  at  first,  or  very  near  the  first,  but  where  the 
ultimate  opportunity  is  relatively  small,  where  the  opportunity  of 
increase  is  exhausted  in  a  year,  two  years,  or  three  years. 

The  next  three  points  —  the  per  cent  of  beginners  leaving  in 
space  of  one  year,  the  per  cent  remaining  in  low-paid  work  at 
the  end  of  six  years,  and  the  per  cent  advanced  to  more  skilled  or 


WHAT  WE  NEED  TO  KNOW  ABOUT  OCCUPATIONS     511 

responsible  work  at  higher  wages  —  represent  the  kind  of  data  that 
we  must  know  to  tell  us  accurately  the  degree  of  economic 
opportunity  presented  by  this  or  that  occupation. 

Referring  again  to  the  machine  industry,  as  I  have  said,  we 
think  of  it  as  a  high-grade  industry,  presenting  a  fair  rate  of  return 
at  skilled  work.  But  until  we  know  better  how  to  answer  some  of 
these  three  questions,  we  really  know  very  little  as  to  the  chance 
of  a  boy  who  goes  into  the  machine  industry  arriving  at  the  stage 
of  the  skilled  worker.  So  the  percentage  of  those  that  remain  and 
the  percentage  that  arrive  at  more  skilled  and  advanced  work  at 
higher  wages  are  very  important  elements  in  the  data  that  we  need. 
Take  such  trades  as  lithography,  for  instance.  We  think  of  this 
as  a  high-grade  trade.  And  yet  over  50  per  cent  of  the  operatives 
employed  in  lithographic  establishments  in  New  York  City  are 
engaged  in  low-grade  work,  bringing  less  than  $10  a  week  for  the 
men  and  less  than  $9  a  week  for  the  women.  Yet  that  is  one  of 
the  trades  we  are  apt  to  hold  up  as  a  high-grade  industry,  and  one 
offering  the  best  of  opportunities. 

Have  all  beginners  opportunity  to  learn  more  than  one  operation 
or  kind  of  work  ?  That,  of  course,  is  closely  associated  with  the  ques- 
tion of  the  extent  of  opportunities  presented  to  the  adult  worker. 

Are  there  opportunities  later  on  for  those  showing  ability  to 
change  from  one  department  to  another  ?  That  is  one  of  the  main 
questions  that  face  us  in  the  study  of  an  industry  like  the  shoe 
industry.  Upon  such  a  question  depends  largely  the  breadth  of 
opportunity  and  surety  of  steady  employment  at  times  of  trade 
fluctuation  in  such  an  industry. 

Is  the  occupation  open  at  the  top  for  all  beginners  with  requisite 
ability  ?  How  are  skilled  or  high-grade  workers  recruited  ?  Does 
the  worker  receive  any  instruction  or  training  from  the  employer  ? 
Is  there  an  apprenticeship  system  ?  What  percentage  of  all  young 
beginners  are  apprenticed  ?  Even  in  those  industries  which  are 
thought  of  as  industries  with  a  well-organized  apprenticeship  sys- 
tem, we  find  that  the  actual  proportion  of  apprentices  is  extremely 
small  to  the  number  of  beginners.  Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of 
one  of  our  large  electrical  corporations,  where  they  have  an  admi- 
rable school  for  the  training  of  apprentices.  Some  six  years  ago 


512  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

when  I  asked  the  director  of  the  school  how  many  entered  during 
the  year,  I  was  told  about  sixty.  It  is  probable  that  the  number  is 
larger  now,  as  the  school  has  been  increased.  When  I  asked  how 
many  young  persons  entered  the  factory  in  unskilled  and  low-grade 
work  during  the  period  of  a  year,  I  was  told  about  fifteen  hundred. 
This  illustrated  the  percentage  of  apprentices,  those  that  were 
going  to  be  trained  for  high-grade  work  as  compared  with  the 
total  number  of  young  persons  entering  that  industry. 

What  are  the  trade-union  restrictions  as  to  apprenticeship  or 
helpers  ?  These  also  involve  data  that  we  need  to  know. 

But  beyond  all  these  questions  we  ought  to  know  the  relations 
of  the  occupation  to  school  facilities,  and  any  study  of  an  occupa- 
tion, it  seems  to  me,  should  necessarily  be  bound  up  and  connected 
with  some  study  of  the  relation  of  school  facilities  to  that  occupa- 
tion. Such  a  question  as  whether  this  industry  —  this  particular 
occupation  that  is  being  studied  —  is  hampered  by  the  lack  of 
knowledge  or  training  on  the  part  of  beginners,  is  a  question  we 
have  got  to  ask  of  industry  to  know  where  we  stand  in  the  matter. 

Is  school  training  beyond  the  "working-paper"  grade  of  value 
for  success  in  the  occupation  ?  Is  school  training  beyond  the  gradu- 
ation from  grammar  schools  of  advantage  ?  Is  a  complete  high- 
school  education  of  advantage  ?  Is  vocational-school  training,  in 
any  form,  an  advantage  ?  If  either  general  or  vocational  training 
is  an  advantage,  just  what  kind  of  training  is  most  necessary  for 
efficiency  ?  (a)  General  knowledge,  (b)  Industrial  and  economic 
intelligence,  (c)  Specialized  technical  knowledge,  (d]  Manipula- 
tive skill.  Would  such  instruction  be  most  helpful  if  obtained 
before  entrance  upon  the  occupation,  or  after  ?  Is  there  need  for 
vocational  training  before  entering  the  occupation  ?  What  institu- 
tions exist  to  furnish  such  training?  Is  supplementary  (evening) 
instruction  desirable  to  complete  the  equipment  of  workers  in  the 
occupation  ?  Is  there  provision  in  existing  institutions  for  such 
instruction  ?  Is  there  need  for  a  part-time  school,  vocational  or 
otherwise,  for  boys  and  girls  at  work  in  the  occupation  ?  Would 
employers  be  willing  to  allow  young  employees  to  attend  such  a 
school  —  half  a  day  —  whole  day  —  without  reduction  in  wages  ? 
This  last  set  of  questions  represent  but  some  of  those  that  must 


WHAT  WE  NEED  TO  KNOW  ABOUT  OCCUPATIONS     513 

be  asked  of  an  occupation  to  find  out  just  what  relation  school 
facilities  present  regarding  that  particular  occupation.  Those  ques- 
tions, you  will  note,  are  not  questions  which  start  from  the  school 
side.  I  have  not  asked,  Have  we  schools  which  provide  for  indus- 
try ?  It  seems  to  me  we  must  approach  the  question  from  the 
other  side.  We  must  ask  specifically  of  a  particular  occupation, 
"  Have  we  the  schools  that  adequately  and  properly  equip  people 
for  entering  or  for  advancing  in  your  occupation  ? "  Only  by 
making  the  approach  in  this  way  to  the  occupations  will  we  ever 
be  able  to  find  out  whether  we  are  adjusted  on  the  school  side  to 
the  needs  of  practical  life. 

It  is  evident  that  if  we  are  to  carry  out  any  scheme  of  vocational 
guidance,  we  need  besides  this  sort  of  information  data  that  are 
obtained  on  the  inside  of  the  schools.  We  need  data  as  to  the  apti- 
tudes and  ability  of  the  children  that  are  gained  by  sympathetic  and 
discriminating  observers.  But  all  that  is  outside  of  my  field  to-day. 

The  collection  of  the  data  to  which  I  have  specifically  referred 
is  evidently  a  pretty  big  task. 

It  is  also  very  evident  that  unless  this  information  is  accurate 
it  has  very  little  use.  In  fact,  it  is  worse  than  useless,  because  it 
is  misleading. 

It  is  evident  also  that  to  gather  data  of  this  kind  means  a  great 
undertaking,  because  a  large  number  of  establishments  must  be 
studied  to  cover  the  great  differences  in  practice  and  in  method 
and  in  organization  that  obtain  in  American  conditions. 

It  is  evident  also  that  the  people  who  collect  information  of 
this  kind  should  be  people  with  a  large  amount  of  industrial  and 
social  intelligence. 

This  kind  of  data,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  kind  that  we  need 
not  alone  for  vocational  guidance.  It  is  data  that  we  must  have 
that  society  may  the  better  understand  itself  and  interpret  itself. 
This  sort  of  data  would  be  of  fully  as  much  value  for  purely  edu- 
cational purposes  as  for  vocational  guidance.  We  absolutely  need  it 
for  reaction  upon  the  whole  school  problem.  We  are  never  going 
to  be  able  to  make  a  satisfactory  adjustment  of  school  instruction 
to  the  needs  of  practical  life  until  we  understand  more  of  the 
conditions  under  which  young  people  enter  the  vocations. 


514  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

It  is  evident,  too,  it  seems  to  me,  that  data  of  this  kind  should 
be  made  a  real  social  asset.  It  needs  to  be  put  in  terms  that  can 
be  used  by  all  kinds  and  conditions  of  people.  Data  of  this  sort 
is  something  that,  in  its  elements  at  least,  ought  to  be  known  and 
understood  by  parents  and  the  public  in  general ;  and  this  means 
that  it  should  be  made  available  in  very  simple  and  popular  form. 

Whether  such  a  task  as  this  is  going  to  be  undertaken  or  going 
to  be  performed  by  the  national  or  state  government,  or  by  private 
initiative,  it  is  very  difficult  to  say.  It  seems  to  me  very  clear  that 
we  must  have  this  data  and  that  in  the  nature  of  things  we  are 
going  to  have  it  some  way  or  other  in  the  future. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  very  clear  that  the  work  of  vocational 
guidance  does  not  need  to  stop  until  this  data  is  collected  in  an 
absolutely  comprehensive  fashion.  What  we  need  for  vocational 
guidance  is  sound,  accurate  information  ;  not  necessarily  compre- 
hensive information.  Data  that  is  far  less  comprehensive  than 
the  outline  I  have  mentioned  here  may  be  extremely  valuable  for 
these  purposes.  Out  of  data  of  this  kind  we  shall  know,  at  least, 
very  definitely  what  are  the  specially  harmful  trades  or  occupa- 
tions ;  what  are  harmful  on  account  of  physical,  sanitary,  or  moral 
dangers  ;  or  what  are  simply  brutalizing,  as  the  work  of  the  rolling 
mills.  We  should  know  also  what  vocations  are  beneficial,  or  which 
give  generous  opportunities,  because  of  their  economic  advantages, 
or  because  of  the  educational  influences  surrounding  them  and 
because  of  the  fact  that  they  permit  continuity  of  growth.  And, 
perhaps  most  important  of  all,  we  should  know  better  with  such 
data  where  to  place  the  emphasis  in  our  educational  work,  and  we 
should  know  much  better  than  we  do  to-day  how  far  and  in  what 
direction  we  should  counsel  pupils  toward  further  schooling,  and 
how  much  toward  the  industries. 


PART  III.  EXAMPLES  OF  VOCATIONAL 
INFORMATION 

THE  ARCHITECT 

(From  "  Vocations  for  Boys,"  issued  by  the  Vocation  Bureau  of  Boston) 
THE  PROFESSION :  ITS  NATURE,  CONDITIONS,  AND  FUTURE 

Architecture  is  the  art  of  building  or  the  art  of  designing 
appropriate  construction.  It  deals  with  the  design  and  working 
drawings  for  buildings  and  the  superintendence  of  their  execution. 
There  are  two  sides  to  the  profession,  —  the  artistic  and  the  practi- 
cal,—  which  are  quite  inseparable  in  preparation  and  in  practice, 
and  both  demand  a  general  knowledge  of  construction.  The  suc- 
cessful architect  is  one  who  has  decided  capacity  either  for  designing 
buildings  and  accessories  or  for  getting  work  done  expeditiously, 
properly,  and  with  economy. 

The  chief  work  of  the  architect  is  indoors,  planning  and  design- 
ing, with  some  outside  work  when  superintending  construction. 
The  physical  conditions  found  in  this  occupation  are  of  the  best. 
A  possible  danger  is  injury  to  the  eyesight.  The  hours  required 
are  short  compared  to  those  of  most  occupations,  usually  from  nine 
to  five,  though  there  is  always  opportunity  for  occasional  work 
outside  of  one's  regular  employment.  Students  in  architecture  in 
the  higher-grade  institutions  can  generally  find  summer  employ- 
ment, either  without  pay  or  at  a  low  rate. 

While  the  hours  are  short  the  work  of  the  draftsman  is  very 
exacting,  and  the  responsibilities  of  the  practicing  architect  very 
great.  He  has  not  only  to  supervise  construction  but  also  to  direct 
the  expenditure,  often,  of  large  sums  of  money  in  the  interests  of 
a  client  who  trusts  in  his  professional  and  business  abilities  and 

515 


Si6  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

standards.  He  may  have,  also,  to  harmonize  the  conflicting  interests 
of  the  various  people  concerned  in  the  construction  of  a  building. 

Closely  allied  to  architecture  are  the  various  branches  of  engi- 
neering :  structural  engineering,  connected  with  the  use  of  iron 
in  construction,  either  by  itself  or  with  concrete  ;  civil  engineering, 
as  connected  with  surveying ;  domestic  engineering,  which  covers 
matters  concerned  in  heating,  ventilating,  electric  light  and  power, 
and  plumbing.  The  tendency  to  specialization  is  increasing  in  these 
lines,  and  there  is  a  growing  demand  for  the  architectural  engineer 
and  for  the  mechanical  engineer.  Such  are  found  in  all  large  offices. 
In  addition  to  the  engineering  there  is  the  work  connected  with 
the  grading,  planting,  and  decoration  of  grounds,  and  this  again 
touches  on  horticulture,  agriculture,  and  forestry.  This  is  the  spe- 
cial work  of  the  landscape  gardener  or  landscape  architect.  All  of 
these  occupations  require  draftsmen,  and  all  require  special  train- 
ing and  experience.  With  all  of  these  branches  of  architecture  the 
architect  is  so  closely  connected  as  to  make  it  desirable,  if  not 
necessary,  that  he  should  have  some  fundamental  knowledge  of 
all.  On  this  account  the  profession  of  architecture  is  becoming 
more  and  .more  complex,  and  offices  tend  to  become  larger  and 
more  thoroughly  organized  and  specialized,  so  that  the  complex 
problems  involved  in  almost  any  modern  building,  with  its  acces- 
sories and  surroundings,  may  receive  proper  study. 

There  is,  therefore,  in  the  whole  field  of  architecture  a  very 
wide  range,  with  very  great  opportunities  for  young  men  of  vary- 
ing talents  and  abilities.  It  is  a  profession  of  the  highest  standing, 
and  has  the  future  of  an  important  occupation. 

PAY,  POSITIONS,  AND  OPPORTUNITIES 

Wages  are  paid  to  the  learner,  but  varying  from  $3  a  week  to 
$6,  according  to  age,  fitness,  and  ability.  The  rate  of  increase  is 
generally  $i,  $1.50,  and  $2  a  week  yearly  until  one  reaches  per- 
manent employment  as  draftsman  or  designer.  These  earn  on  an 
average  from  $800  to  $1500  a  year,  though  exceptional  men  earn 
more,  up  to  $2000  or  $3000.  Men  holding  high  positions  in  a 
firm,  though  not  members  of  it,  often  have  a  share  in  the  profits. 


THE  ARCHITECT  517 

The  majority  entering  the  profession  remain  draftsmen  perma- 
nently, at  pay  varying  from  $20  to  $35  a  week.  Graduates  from 
advanced  college  courses  may  earn  $40  a  week  or  more  in  perma- 
nent employment  as  draftsmen,  after  spending  two  or  three  years 
in  an  office.  The  draftsman  is  sometimes  called  the  architect's 
assistant.  Boston  offices  employ  from  two  or  three  to  twenty-five 
or  more  draftsmen  in  each. 

The  earnings  of  the  practicing  architect,  who  is  not  working  on 
a  salary,  are  variable,  ranging  from  $1000  to  $5000  or  $10,000 
a  year.  A  small  number  of  American  architects  with  a  national 
reputation  earn  greater  sums,  but  comparatively  few  in  the  profes- 
sion receive  more  than  moderate  incomes.  Architectural  receipts 
depend  upon  the  conditions  of  the  building  business,  and  this  in 
turn  upon  the  state  of  general  business.  Again,  the  class  of  con- 
tracts rather  than  their  number  is  to  be  taken  into  consideration. 
An  architect  sometimes  devotes  a  year  or  even  more  to  the  design- 
ing of  a  single  building,  of  which  he  usually  superintends  the 
erection.  The  minimum  fee,  named  as  professional  and  binding 
by  the  American  Institute  of  Architects,  for  plans,  specifications, 
and  superintendence  is  6  per  cent  of  the  total  cost  of  the  building, 
and  on  buildings  costing  less  than  $10,000  a  higher  rate  is  usually 
charged.  The  fee  for  the  architect's  services  on  small  buildings 
is  seldom  less  than  $100,  and  the  architect  of  a  city  block,  hotel, 
or  public  building  may  receive  from  $3000  to  $25,000  or  more. 

Many  of  the  best  architects  find  it  of  great  advantage  to  work 
under  partnership  arrangements,  as  firms.  The  firm  gets  a  wider 
range  of  clients  when  it  can  offer  expert  service  in  each  of  the 
various  lines  of  the  profession. 

Besides  draftsmen  architects  require  expert  stenographers  and 
bookkeepers,  and  one  of  these  is  often  an  office  manager,  attend- 
ing to  the  administration  of  the  office  routine.  Such  a  position 
does  not  require  professional  education  or  training  but  business 
knowledge  and  executive  ability.  In  a  large  office  of  from  twenty 
to  one  hundred  men  this  position  is  a  responsible  and  well-paid  one. 

Pursuits  allied  to  architecture,  and  in  a  sense  supplementary  to 
it,  are  the  designing  and  manufacture  of  furniture,  rugs,  interiors, 
and  stained  glass,  mural  painting,  and  landscape  architecture.  In 


5l8  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

recent  years  the  architect  has  found  a  new  and  important  field  in 
town  and  city  planning.  Members  of  the  profession  are  usually 
included  in  building  commissions,  as  in  the  Boston  Schoolhouse 
Commission. 

The  outside  superintendent  is  often  merely  a  capable  draftsman 
with  thorough  knowledge  of  construction  in  all  trades  and  ability 
to  handle  men.  Such  a  man  need  have  no  especial  training  in 
design,  although  experience  will  have  given  him  some  judgment 
in  such  matters.  The  clerk  of  the  works,  or  superintendent  of 
construction,  is  paid  by  the  owner,  but  is  under  the  control  of 
the  architect.  Such  men  receive  from  $1500  to  $2500  a  year. 

Architecture  is  a  profession  that  centers  in  cities  and  towns, 
and  the  unprecedented  growth  of  large  cities  in  this  country  has 
given  the  American  architect  a  constantly  enlarging  field  of  activity 
and  service. 


THE  BOY:    QUALITIES  AND  TRAINING  REQUIRED 

A  boy  fourteen  years  old  may  find  a  place  in  office  work  in  this 
profession  with  some  opportunity  for  learning.  Usually,  however, 
a  boy  must  be  at  least  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  he  is  not  likely 
to  become  exclusively  a  draftsman  until  he  is  twenty.  One  must 
have  imagination,  structural  sense,  skill  in  designing  and  drafting, 
a  mechanical  or  artistic  cast  of  mind,  and  judgment.  Good  health 
and  habits  and  good  eyesight  are  essential.  Some  architects 
prefer  city  boys  on  account  of  their  acquaintance  with  streets 
and  buildings. 

There  are  two  natural  divisions  in  this  profession,  demanding 
two  kinds  of  men.  First  is  the  artist.  He  is  a  designer,  and  works 
indoors  on  plans  for  construction.  He  must  have  creative  ability, 
artistic  feeling,  and  power  to  sketch.  He  must  constantly  study 
art  and  architecture.  He  may,  however,  have  but  a  minimum  of 
mathematical  knowledge. 

The  second  is  the  construction  man  indoors  and  out,  the  super- 
intendent of  outdoor  work.  He  must  acquire  a  comprehensive 
working  knowledge  of  construction,  of  the  writing  of  specifica- 
tions, and  of  superintending  work.  He  may  have  a  minimum  of 


THE  ARCHITECT  519 

artistic  feeling  and  ability,  but  he  must  have  a  maximum  of  mathe- 
matical and  technical  knowledge  and  of  administrative  ability. 

As  a  rule  architects  are  trained  in  a  professional  school,  after 
having  obtained  a  college  degree,  and  this  study  is  supplemented 
by  travel  and  study  abroad ;  but  many  boys  become  good  drafts- 
men, and  some  few  good  architects,  with  no  other  school  education 
but  that  of  the  high  school,  and  no  other  professional  education 
but  that  acquired  in  an  office  and  through  the  various  evening 
classes  and  university  extension  work. 

In  all  cases  high-school  training  is  required,  yet  this  may  only 
make  one  a  draftsman ;  for  advancement  beyond  this  position,  tech- 
nical education  is  necessary,  except  in  cases  of  especial  ability. 
Designers  and  practicing  architects  are  nearly  all  graduates  of 
technical  schools  or  colleges,  such  as  the  Massachusetts  Institute 
of  Technology  or  the  Graduate  School  of  Applied  Science  at  Har- 
vard. Many  young  men  in  architects'  offices,  especially  those 
who  have  not  had  a  college  training,  study  in  evening  classes  in 
the  Y.M.C.A.  Institute  or  in  the  Architectural  Club.  It  is  a  pro- 
fession demanding  constant  study  and  concentration  of  thought 
and  endeavor. 

There  are  many  scholarships  in  the  colleges  and  in  connection 
with  architectural  societies  for  draftsmen  of  marked  ability.  These 
afford  opportunities  for  education  with  tuition  fees  paid  or  one  or 
two  years  of  foreign  travel  and  study  with  all  expenses  paid. 

A  liberal  education  is  of  the  greatest  value.  Architects  owe 
many  of  their  ideas  to  foreign  examples,  and  the  more  one  is 
educated  the  more  he  will  profit  by  travel  and  study.  Nevertheless, 
in  this  country  the  capacity  to  organize  and  direct  an  office  is 
essential  for  him  who  would  have  charge  of  large  work.  A  knowl- 
edge of  French  is  an  advantage,  as  many  books  on  architecture 
are  written  in  that  language  ;  yet  one  needs  above  all  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  English  language.  Draftsmen  will  need  a  work- 
ing knowledge  of  ordinary  construction  or  else  of  historic  orna- 
ment, and  skilled  work  alone  will  often  not  suffice.  A  student 
of  architecture  should  keep  in  touch  with  new  books  and  maga- 
zines, and  study  the  kinds  and  uses  of  material.  This  knowledge 
is  especially  important  now  when  so  many  new  kinds  of  material 


520  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

are  coming  into  use.  Terra  cotta  in  architectural  work  has  an 
increasing  interest.  Concrete,  also,  is  a  material  whose  structural 
and  ornamental  possibilities  are  only  beginning  to  be  understood. 
With  this  multiplying  of  kinds  of  material,  the  student  cannot 
afford  to  neglect  the  subject.  The  conditions  of  practice  in  which 
the  client  often  disregards  time  make  it  necessary  for  the  student 
to  learn  to  work  quickly,  yet  he  must  take  care  that  his  work 
appear  finished  rather  than  crude,  and  that  it  show  character 
rather  than  copying. 

COMMENTS  OF  PEOPLE  IN  THE  PROFESSION 

There  is  but  little  change  in  the  personnel  of  a  firm  from  year  to  year,  and 
the  profession  is  a  life  occupation  for  those  going  into  it. 

Professional  education  is  by  far  the  best ;  one  cannot  well  educate  one's 
self  for  an  occupation  having  such  high  requirements. 

The  complexity  of  modern  life  as  echoed  in  modern  buildings  is  so  great 
that  the  work  of  the  conscientious  architect  is  arduous  and  wearing  in  the  ex- 
treme, and  its  best  appreciation  comes  largely  from  other  architects  and  artists. 

The  architect  has  an  unusual  opportunity  to  be  helpful  in  civic  advance. 
He  is  recognized  by  the  public  as  a  professional  man  as  well  as  an  artist,  and 
consequently  has  a  hearing  which  as  an  artist  alone  he  would  lack.  Though 
he  cannot  afford  to  do  much  real  work  without  fees,  still  by  his  attitude  he  can 
in  a  very  marked  way  direct  public  taste  toward  the  principles  of  good  design 
in  city  planning  and  in  civic  art.  The  architect  can  direct  men's  eyes  so  that 
they  too  can  "  dream  dreams  "  of  things  which  may  be  brought  to  pass. 

SUGGESTIONS  FROM  AN  ARCHITECT  TO  A  BOY  WHO  WISHES  TO 
ENTER  THE  PROFESSION 

A  boy  must  have  creative  ability  to  become  an  architect,  but  the  boy  who 
loves  sketching  or  modeling,  or  work  with  tools,  may  have  the  making  of  one. 
The  capacity  to  think  for  one's  self,  to  plan  work  ahead  and  get  it  done  on 
schedule  time,  to  be  prompt,  explicit,  and  thorough,  these  are  qualifications  of 
prime  importance  in  architectural  work.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  client 
more  readily  appreciates  good  business  methods  than  good  design ;  yet 
competition  among  the  best  designers  is  always  keen. 

The  architect  must  be  an  administrator  as  well  as  an  artist.  This  is  a  recent 
outgrowth,  but  under  present  conditions  the  student  must  look  forward  to  be- 
coming a  partner  in  or  part  of  a  large  concern.  For  this  he  receives  no  training 
in  school,  so  if  your  bent  is  for  designing  and  not  for  handling  men,  try  to 
put  through  some  actual  work  while  studying.  You  will  learn  much  from  your 


THE  ARCHITECT  521 

relations  with  a  client,  and  from  the  trades  that  go  into  the  work.  If  it  be  only 
an  ell  to  a  house  or  an  outbuilding,  so  long  as  the  responsibility  rests  on  you, 
do  it.  Have  interests  outside  of  architecture.  Design  such  things  as  interior 
decoration,  draperies,  and  light  fixtures,  or  other  accessories. 

There  is  no  recipe  for  getting  clients.  The  best  way  to  get  clients  is  to 
deserve  them. 

It  is  not  hard  for  a  bright  boy  to  get  into  an  architect's  office  as  messenger 
or  office  boy,  with  a  chance  to  make  tracings.  This  is  the  beginning  of  the 
average  draftsmanship,  and  its  relation  to  actual  work  will  be  learned  in  the 
office  and  by  going  out  into  the  work  itself.  Part  time  in  an  architect's  office 
and  part  time  in  a  technical  school  will  help  a  boy  to  a  thorough  education  in 
the  profession ;  but  unless  his  heart  is  in  his  work  from  the  first,  he  had  better 
seek  another  occupation. 


A.  MASSACHUSETTS,  1905,  SELECTED  OCCUPATIONS,  AGE  PERIODS  FOR 

ARCHITECTS,  DESIGNERS,  DRAFTSMEN,  ETC. 

MALES  FEMALES  TOTALS 

Under  16  years 

16  to  24  years,  inclusive 690  9  699 

25  to  44  years,  inclusive 1619  33  1652 

45  to  64  years,  inclusive 476  3  479 

65  years  and  over,  and  unknown 74  i  75 

Aggregate  number 2859          46         2905 

B.  UNITED  STATES,  1900,  OCCUPATIONS,  TOTAL  PERSONS  TEN  YEARS 
OF  AGE  AND  OVER,  ARCHITECTS,  DESIGNERS,  DRAFTSMEN,  ETC. 

MALE     FEMALE    TOTALS 

Of  native  parentage 14,890       524      15,414 

Of  foreign  parentage 13,628       518      14,146 

Aggregate  number 28,518     1042      29,560 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

To  gain  an  idea  of  architecture  as  a  profession,  read  first  some  good  history 
of  architecture,  such  as  Sturgis,  Hamlin,  Mathews,  Waterhouse,  or  the  chap- 
ters on  architecture  in  some  good  history  of  art,  such  as  Reinach  or  Luebke ; 
then  look  over  the  photographs  and  drawings  of  buildings  described  by  the 
books  you  have  read. 

On  the  modern  practice  of  architecture  the  latest  edition  of  T.  M.  Clark's 
"  Building  Superintendence  "  is  very  valuable  for  a  beginner,  and  such  books 
as  Chandler's  or  Snyder's  "  Details  of  Building  Construction  "  give  an  idea  of 
what  is  required  by  office  drawings. 


522  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Besides  these,  it  is  advisable  to  go  over  the  articles  in  the  cyclopedia  on 
architecture  and  also  on  building,  especially  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica. 

Read  books  on  allied  pursuits,  such  as  furniture  designing  and  manufactur- 
ing, rugs,  interior  furnishing,  landscape  architecture,  mural  painting,  tile  work, 
stained  glass,  steel  construction,  building  materials,  carpentry,  masonry,  sani- 
tation, and  town  planning. 

CLARK,  T.  M.    Building  Superintendence  (A  Manual  for  Young  Architects). 

The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York. 
Cyclopedia  of  Architecture  and  Building.  American  Technical  Society,  Chicago, 

1907. 
HAMLIN,  A.  D.  F.    History  of  Architecture.    Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.,  New 

York,  1897. 
LUEBKE.    Outlines  of  the  History  of  Art,  edited  by  Russell  Sturgis,  2  vols. 

Smith,  Paul  Elder  and  Company,  New  York  and  London. 
STURGIS,  RUSSELL,  and  FROTHINGHAM,  A.  L.   History  of  Architecture,  3  vols. 

Batsford,  London,  1910. 
WATERHOUSE,  P.  L.    Story  of  the  Art  of  Building  (Library  of  Useful  Stories). 

D.  Appleton  and  Company,  New  York,  1901. 

Journals  of  the  Profession 

The  Architectural  Review,  Boston. 
The  Brickbuilder,  an  architectural  monthly,  Boston. 
The  American  Architect,  New  York. 
Architecture,  New  York. 
The  Architectural  Record,  New  York. 

The  Technology  Architectural  Record,  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 
Architectural  Society. 


THE  GROCER 

(From  "  Vocations  for  Boys,"  issued  by  the  Vocation  Bureau  of  Boston) 
THE  BUSINESS:   ITS  NATURE,  DIVISIONS,  AND  FUTURE 

The  grocer  is  a  merchant  who  deals  in  groceries  and  provisions, 
or  household  food  supplies.  He  stands  between  the  producer  and 
consumer,  buying  from  the  one  and  selling  to  the  other  the  food 
staples  of  the  people. 

The  occupation,  as  a  business,  has  two  broad  divisions,  whole- 
saling and  retailing.  The  wholesaler  buys  from  the  producer  or 
manufacturer  and  sells  to  the  retail  dealer.  The  large  retailer, 
however,  often  buys  directly  from  the  producer.  The  wholesaler 
who  sells  to  smaller  wholesale  dealers  is  usually  called  a  jobber, 
while  one  who  does  business  on  a  commission  is  styled  a  commis- 
sion merchant.  A  large  percentage  of  the  business  of  the  market 
district  of  Boston  is  done  on  a  commission  basis.  The  wholesaler 
or  the  large  retail  dealer  may  also  be  an  importer.  The  large 
dealer  is  usually  called  a  merchant,  and  the  small  dealer  a  store- 
keeper, as  in  other  lines  of  mercantile  business. 

Formerly  most  grocery  stores,  wholesale  and  retail,  dealt  in 
groceries  only.  Now  an  increasing  number  carry  also  what  are 
called  provisions,  such  as  fresh  meats  and  fresh  vegetables  or 
fish.  While  this  makes  a  larger  general  business,  it  entails  the 
loss  incident  to  handling  perishable  goods,  such  as  fruits,  and  the 
uncertainty  of  the  meat  trade.  The  duties,  also,  of  the  employee 
are  more  exacting  and  onerous  in  the  grocery  and  provision 
trade  and  his  average  earnings  slightly  less,  as  will  appear  in  the 
census  reports  quoted  in  this  bulletin. 

The  grocery  and  provision  trade  is  one  of  the  great  divisions 
of  merchandising.  Its  magnitude  is  shown  by  the  place  it  holds 
in  the  total  cost  of  living.  In  a  census  taken  by  the  government 
in  1903,  of  1189  representative  families  in  Massachusetts,  it  was 

523 


524  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

found  that  food  constituted  40.9  per  cent  of  the  total  living  ex- 
penses. Again,  by  the  twelfth  census  of  the  United  States  it 
appears  that  the  business  had  increased  over  36  per  cent  in  the 
decade  between  1890  and  1900. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  so  easy  fo'r  a  person  with  small 
capital  to  go  into  this  business  as  it  was  twenty  years  ago,  except 
possibly  in  a  small  city  or  town.  The  grocery  trade  of  the  depart- 
ment store,  the  modern  chain  system  of  grocery  stores,  and  the 
large  retail  grocery  store  with  capital  enough  to  conduct  a  cash 
business,  all  bring  great  competition  into  the  field,  with  excessive 
advertising  and  cutting  of  prices,  and  imperil  the  business  of  the 
small  dealer,  lessening  it  or  driving  him  out  altogether,  unless  he 
has  control  of  some  special  line  of  goods. 

Two  conditions  have  worked  against  the  retail  business  in  the 
past,  often  causing  financial  failure.  First,  the  former  widespread 
system  of  selling  on  credit  has  resulted  in  a  constant  loss  from 
poor  accounts,  and  dealers  with  small  capital  have  frequently  had 
to  go  out  of  business.  Modern  methods  of  doing  business,  with 
the  cutting  of  prices  to  small  margins  in  staple  lines,  are  resulting 
in  the  general  establishment  of  the  cash  system  in  the  grocery 
trade.  Secondly,  in  many  cases  men  have  come  from  other  occu- 
pations in  middle  life  into  the  grocery  business,  thus  entering  it 
from  the  top,  and  lacking  the  necessary  knowledge  that  would 
have  resulted  from  growing  up  in  it.  As  a  consequence  there 
have  been  many  failures  from  this  cause.  The  increasing  diffi- 
culties of  entering  the  occupation  late  in  life  and  as  a  proprie- 
tor with  small  capital  are  likely  to  lessen  the  number  of  such 
failures. 

The  larger  business,  affording  employment  to  a  large  number 
of  persons  at  pay  about  equaling  that  of  most  unskilled  occupa- 
tions, is  that  of  the  retail  grocer.  It  offers  a  variety  of  opportunity, 
and  to  many  people  proves  an  interesting  and  fairly  remunerative 
pursuit. 

The  wholesale-grocery  trade  offers  to  a  smaller  number  of  men 
of  fair  education,  business  ability,  and  mercantile  tastes  and  train- 
ing more  permanent  employment  and  a  larger  opportunity  for 
earnings  and  advancement. 


THE  GROCER  525 

The  near  future  will  show  a  fuller  development  of  the  cash 
system,  larger  stores,  an  increasing  need  of  full  knowledge  of 
all  conditions  from  the  bottom  up,  and  a  larger  opportunity  and 
demand  for  expert  buying,  management,  and  salesmanship  in  a 
constantly  widening  field. 

CONDITIONS  OF  EMPLOYMENT 

In  this  occupation  there  are  some  objectionable  conditions  to 
be  met,  and  many  arduous  duties  to  be  performed  by  boys.  The 
hours  of  service  are  from  7  in  the  morning  until  6  or  to  6.30  at 
night,  and  until  10  o'clock  or  later  on  Saturday  evening.  The 
hours,  however,  are  lessening,  from  improved  means  of  cold  storage 
and  modern  methods  of  conducting  business.  Suburban  stores  close 
on  Wednesday  afternoon,  giving  a  half  holiday  to  their  employees. 
Pay  is  low  considering  the  work  to  be  done,  and  the  large  number 
of  employees  under  twenty-one  in  most  stores  makes  the  average 
wages  of  the  employee  seem  small,  less  than  $  1 1  a  week  in  the 
state,  but  somewhat  larger  in  Boston.  It  is  an  occupation  de- 
manding few  special  requirements,  and  for  the  most  part  little 
training,  so  that  the  position  of  the  average  employee  is  less 
certain  than  in  an  occupation  that  is  entered  by  a  regular  course 
of  preparation. 

A  more  serious  condition  still  is  that  the  occupation  in  most 
lines  calls  for  physical  activity,  and  employers  dismiss  many  em- 
ployees in  middle  life  and  fill  their  places  with  young  men.  So 
that  unless  one  becomes  a  member  of  a  firm,  or  proves  especially 
valuable  to  a  house  in  some  line  of  service,  or  because  of  certain 
personal  qualities,  he  cannot  be  sure  of  employment  in  the  later 
years  of  life. 

The  boy  must  do  all  the  less  agreeable  work,  such  as  sweeping 
and  cleaning  refrigerators.  He  is  sometimes  tried  out  purposely 
by  the  harder  duties.  He  must  take  care  of  goods  and  handle 
heavy  cases,  and  bags  and  boxes  of  provisions  in  the  provision 
trade.  Though  work  on  the  wagon  is  hard,  most  boys  are  attracted 
to  it.  The  use  of  the  grocery  wagon,  however,  is  decreasing  be- 
cause of  the  cost  of  maintaining  routes,  the  difficulties  of  collect- 
ing accounts,  and  the  advantages  of  cash  trade  at  the  store  itself. 


526  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  boy  in  a  grocery  store  is  on  his  feet  through  a  long  and 
busy  day,  and  his  work  lightens  in  the  city  only  in  the  summer 
season  and  in  the  smaller  store.  The  larger  store  may  still 
supply  its  customers  who  go  out  of  town  in  the  summer,  so  that 
mail-order  trade  is  increased. 

The  occupation  of  the  grocer  is  a  healthful  one  because  of  the 
prevailing  conditions  of  open  air  and  physical  exercise. 

POSITIONS  IN  THE  SMALL  RETAIL  STORE 

The  division  of  labor  in  stores  carrying  groceries  and  provisions 
is  becoming  more  definite  each  year,  especially  in  large  establish- 
ments in  which  a  high  state  of  organization  is  necessary  for  the 
best  financial  results.  In  a  small  store  the  positions  are  few.  They 
are  as  follows  :  The  errand  or  chore  boy ;  the  clerk  behind  the 
counter,  who  is  concerned  mainly  in  selling  goods  or  waiting  upon 
customers  ;  the  order  clerk,  who  takes  orders  upon  the  wagon  and 
usually  delivers  them  ;  the  head  man,  who  has  general  charge  of 
the  other  employees ;  the  proprietor,  who,  as  a  rule,  acts  as  his 
own  manager  and  buyer.  In  addition  there  may  be  an  expert 
meat  cutter.  The  places  of  bookkeeper  and  cashier  are  usually 
filled  by  girls  or  women. 


A  wide  variety  of  employment  is  afforded  by  the  large,  modern 
retail  store,  which  may  combine  a  wholesale  business  with  its  retail 
trade.  There  are  very  many  positions,  mainly  as  follows :  the  errand 
boy ;  the  helper  on  a  wagon  or  driver  on  a  wagon  ;  the  order  clerk, 
who  assembles  orders  ;  the  checker,  who  checks  orders  before  they 
are  packed  or  delivered ;  the  packer ;  the  card  writer,  who  addresses 
shipping  cards  or  tags ;  the  shipper ;  the  salesman  behind  the  coun- 
ter ;  the  route  salesman,  who  calls  at  residences  for  orders  ;  the  re- 
ceiving clerk,  who  attends  to  the  receiving  of  all  merchandise  ;  the 
stockman,  who  has  the  care  of  merchandise  carried  in  stock,  opens 
cases,  and  keeps  the  salesroom  supplied  ;  the  window  dresser ; 
the  investigator  of  complaints ;  the  clerk  in  the  telephone  and 
mail-order  department ;  the  manager  or  foreman  of  a  department ; 


THE  GROCER  527 

the  floor  manager,  who  has  charge  of  the  salesroom  and  sales- 
men ;  the  buyer  in  a  department ;  the  collector,  who  goes  out 
to  collect  delinquent  accounts  ;  the  credit  man,  who  passes  upon 
and  has  oversight  of  charge  accounts  ;  the  bookkeeper  and  ac- 
countant, stenographer,  operator  of  the  typewriter,  and  cashier, 
who  may  be  men  in  the  large  store ;  the  clerk  in  the  foreign 
department ;  the  advertising  manager ;  clerk  in  manager's  office, 
who  handles  correspondence  and  records ;  the  manager's  assist- 
ant ;  the  manager,  usually  separate  from  the  ownership ;  and  the 
proprietor. 

POSITIONS  IN  THE  WHOLESALE  STORE 

There  are  necessarily  fewer  places  in  the  wholesale  business  on 
account  of  the  less  detail  involved  and  the  magnitude  of  individual 
sales.  First  is  a  division  called  the  outside  help  :  the  elevator  boy, 
who  brings  out  goods  to  fill  orders  ;  the  receiver  of  merchandise  ; 
the  packer  ;  and  the  shipper.  Then  come  four  groups  of  salesmen, 
whose  place  is  very  important  in  the  business  :  the  store  salesman, 
the  city  salesman,  the  suburban  salesman,  and  the  country  sales- 
man. The  third  division  is  that  of  the  buyers  and  assistants  in 
various  departments,  chiefly  these :  canned  goods  ;  teas  and  coffee  ; 
sugar,  molasses,  and  rice  ;  dried  fruits  ;  flour  ;  and  cigars.  There 
are  floormen  for  each  floor,  and  finally  the  manager  and  proprietor. 

In  the  wholesale  provision  trade,  carried  on  largely  by  small 
commission  houses,  the  important  positions  are  those  of  manager, 
buyer,  and  store  salesman. 

PAY  AND  OPPORTUNITIES 

In  a  small  store  a  boy  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  of  age  may 
receive  $3  or  $4  a  week  at  first,  as  errand  boy  and  helper.  In  an 
average  store  a  boy  of  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  would  receive 
from  $5  to  $8.  In  a  large  retail  or  wholesale  store  a  young  man 
of  nineteen  or  twenty  years  would  enter  at  $10  or  $12.  Increase 
in  pay  is  small,  possibly  averaging  $i  a  week  yearly,  until  one 
reaches  the  average  or  maximum  in  a  department.  With  some 
stores,  especially  in  the  provision  line  of  the  market  district,  there 
is  opportunity  for  Saturday  employment,  at  pay  ranging  from  $i  .50 


528  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to  $3  for  the  day  and  evening.  In  the  case  of  many  boys  and 
young  men  this  Saturday  employment  leads  to  permanent  work 
in  the  occupation. 

Boys  serve  as  general  helpers,  deliver  packages,  help  on  wagons, 
assist  in  shipping,  have  the  care  of  goods,  fill  shelves,  learn  prices, 
and  in  general  fit  themselves  to  act  as  selling  clerks.  They  do 
little  selling,  however,  before  six  months'  or  a  year's  employment. 
By  the  end  of  a  year's  service,  or  when  the  average  boy  would 
become  a  clerk,  a  permanent  choice  is  likely  to  be  made  between 
the  selling  side  and  the  merchandise  side  of  the  business. 

There  are  open  all  the  opportunities  of  the  many  positions 
already  enumerated  in  the  retail  and  wholesale  stores.  Above  the 
boy,  the  average  employee,  with  not  much  difference  between  de- 
partments or  divisions  of  labor,  earns  from  $12  to  $15  a  week. 
With  some  stores  pay  above  $12  depends  upon  the  amount  of 
daily  or  weekly  sales  made  by  a  clerk  on  a  practical  commission 
basis.  Bookkeepers  and  accountants  and  clerks  who  fill  places 
demanding  some  special  training  or  experience  receive  a  little 
more,  up  to  $20  a  week  for  ordinary  houses,  and  $25  or  $30 
with  very  large  firms.  Traveling  salesmen,  head-store  salesmen, 
floorwalkers,  buyers,  and  managers  of  departments,  or,  in  general, 
men  filling  places  which  call  for  special  business  abilities,  receive 
from  $20  to  $50  in  the  larger  stores  in  Boston. 

With  the  large  houses  expert  buyers  and  traveling  salesmen 
are  most  in  demand. 


THE  BOY:   QUALITIES  AND  TRAINING  REQUIRED 

While  one  may  enter  this  occupation  at  the  age  of  fourteen, 
many  stores  selling  groceries  and  provisions  do  not  take  boys 
under  sixteen  or  eighteen  years  of  age.  Aside  from  errands  and 
simple  duties,  boys  should  have  age  and  strength  for  handling 
quantities  of  goods  and  for  long  hours  of  work.  City  grocers 
often  prefer  the  country  boy,  who  has  become  accustomed  to 
long  hours  and  steady  application. 

A  boy  should  have  at  least  a  grammar-school  education  and 
be  able  to  make  simple  computations,  such  as  invoices  and  sales, 


THE  GROCER  529 

quickly  and  accurately.  A  high-school  course  or  a  business  course 
would  be  a  great  advantage.  For  bookkeeping  and  accounting  one 
should  be  well  equipped  in  the  keeping  of  accounts  and  in  com- 
mercial arithmetic.  Some  employers,  however,  prefer  to  take  a  boy 
directly  from  school,  without  especial  training  in  accounting,  and 
teach  him  their  own  system.  Office  clerks  and  secretaries  should 
know  commercial  law  and  in  some  cases  commercial  geography. 
There  is  an  increasing  demand  for  young  men  as  stenographers 
and  operators  of  typewriters  in  the  large  stores,  and  in  the  large 
wholesale  and  retail  houses  college  graduates  are  frequently  found 
in  the  higher  positions. 

COMMENTS  OF  PEOPLE  IN  THE  OCCUPATION 

Almost  any  boy  of  average  ability  and  of  good  habits  who  is  willing  to 
work  and  is  faithful  to  reasonable  duties  can  become  a  successful  employee 
in  a  grocery  store. 

As  substantially  all  merchants  and  storekeepers  were  at  one  time  salesmen, 
we  must  draw  the  conclusion  that  the  selling  department  of  business  offers 
the  greatest  opportunities  for  advancement  to  the  boy  who  wishes  to  enter  a 
mercantile  business  life. 

The  young  man  who  goes  into  this  business  for  himself  should  be  a  natural 
trader  and  master  of  detail.  He  should  be  able  to  economize  where  others  waste. 

The  storekeeper  comes  into  direct  contact  with  most  of  his  customers.  He 
knows  them  socially  as  well  as  in  a  business  way.  His  personality  counts  as 
much  as  does  his  store.  We  need  more  men  in  business  for  themselves  and 
masters  of  themselves. 

EXTRACTS  FROM  CENSUS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS,  1905 
A.  MANUFACTURE  AND  TRADE 

GROCERIES  AND 
GROCERIES  PROVISIONS 

Number  of  establishments 4306  2761 

Partners  and  stockholders 8137  9IO9 

Capital  invested $17,418,740  $8,646,118 

Value  of  goods  sold $101,092,078  $67,052,908 

Number  of  wage  earners 8608 

Amount  paid  in  weekly  wages $90,180 

Average  weekly  earnings $10.48  $10.18 

Number  of  salaried  persons 639  218 

Amount  paid  in  weekly  salaries $14,957  $2949 

Average  weekly  salaries $23.41  $I3-53 


530  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

B.  CLASSIFIED  WEEKLY  WAGES,  BY  KINDS  OF  BUSINESS 

BOTH 

MALES  FEMALES  SEXES 

Groceries 7211  1397  8608 

Under  $3 133  27  160 

$3  but  under  $4 125  51  176 

$4  but  under  $5 178  68  246 

$5  but  under  $6 230  214  444 

#6  but  under  $7 350  290  640 

$7  but  under  $8 362  195  557 

$8  but  under  $9 336  182  518 

•  $9  but  under  $10 682  102  784 

$10  but  under  $12 1413  164  1577 

$12  but  under  $15 2220  84  2304 

$15  but  under  $20 911  18  929 

$20  and  over 271  2  273 

Groceries,  provisions,  etc 7708  1200  8908 

Under  $3 251  25  276 

$3  but  under  $4 169  30  199 

$4  but  under  $5 174  41  215 

$5  but  under  $6 266  160  426 

$6  but  under  $7 407  267  674 

$7  but  under  $8 316  204  520 

$8  but  under  $9 464  170  634 

$9  but  under  $10 500  102  602 

$10  but  under  $12 1455  131  1586 

$12  but  under  $15 2544  60  2604 

$15  but  under  $20 1039  10  1049 

$20  and  over 123  —  123 

C.  CLASSIFIED  WEEKLY  SALARIES,  BY  KINDS  OF  BUSINESS 

BOTH 

'  MALES  FEMALES    SEXES 

Groceries 568  71  639 

Under  $5 7  6  13 

$5  but  under  $6 6  8  14 

$6  but  under  $7 13  n  24 

$7  but  under  $8 3  8  1 1 

$8  but  under  $9 20  7  27 

$9  but  under  $10 n  8  19 

$10  but  under  $12 41  9  50 

$12  but  under  $15 83  n  94 

$15  but  under  $20 79  3  82 

$20  and  over 305  —  305 

Groceries,  provisions,  etc 178  40  218 

Under  $5 u  i  12 


THE  GROCER 


531 


$5  but  under  $6  . 
$6  but  under  $7  . 
$7  but  under  $8  . 
$8  but  under  $9  . 
$9  but  under  $10 
$10  but  under  $12 
$12  but  under  $15 
$15  but  under  $20 
$20  and  over  .    . 


9 

5 
9 
7 
6 

19 
46 

34 
32 


6 

10 

5 
8 

4 

2 

3 
i 


IS 
15 
14 

IS 
10 

21 

49 
35 
32 


D.  MANNER  OF  SELLING  GOODS,  BY  KINDS  OF  BUSINESS 


NUMBER  OF      AMOUNT 

TOTAL  VALUE 

AMOUNT 

PAID 

AMOUNT 

PAID 

ESTABLISH- 

OF  CAPITAL 

OF  GOODS 

WEEKLY  IN 

WEEKLY  IN 

MENTS 

INVESTED 

SOLD 

WAGES 

SALARIES 

FOOD  and  FOOD 

PRODUCTS  .    .. 

14,224 

$71,708,282 

$448,082,405 

$507,490 

$67,121 

Retail    .... 

12,441 

30,968,451 

181,258,332 

3  '9.437 

15.327 

Wholesale     .    . 

I,4OI 

30,217,112 

161,783,929 

144.7  r  5 

37.542 

Jobbing      .     .    . 

112 

2,278,321 

IS.387.709 

8,829 

2,736 

Commission  .    . 

234 

5,850,056 

78,479,132 

29,962 

7,519 

Exporting  .    .    . 

4 

65,000 

248,630 

130 

80 

Importing      .    . 

28 

2,070,145 

8,476,266 

3,080 

3.280 

Exporting  and 

importing  .    . 

4 

259,197 

2,448,407 

L337 

637 

FOOD  AND  DRUG  LAWS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Reprinted  from  Mamtal  of  Health  Laws,  January, 
Sale  of  Adulterated  Foods  and  Drugs  forbidden 

Section  16.  No  person  shall  manufacture,  offer  for  sale,  or  sell,  within  this 
commonwealth,  any  drug  or  article  of  food  which  is  adulterated  within  the 
meaning  of  section  eighteen ;  but  no  employee,  other  than  a  manager  or 
superintendent,  shall  be  punished  for  a  violation  of  this  section  unless  such 
violation  was  intentional  on  the  part  of  the  said  employee. 

Section  18  (in  part).    Adulteration  defined  : 

Food  shall  be  deemed  to  be  adulterated:  i.  If  any  substance  has  been 
mixed  with  it  so  as  to  reduce,  depreciate,  or  injuriously  affect  its  quality, 
strength,  or  purity.  2.  If  an  inferior  or  cheaper  substance  has  been  substi- 
tuted for  it  wholly  or  in  part.  3.  If  any  valuable  or  necessary  constituents 
or  ingredients  have  been  wholly  or  in  part  taken  from  it.  4.  If  it  is  in  imita- 
tion of  or  is  sold  under  the  name  of  another  article.  5.  If  it  consists  wholly 
or  in  part  of  a  diseased,  decomposed,  putrid,  tainted,  or  rotten  animal  or  vege- 
table substance  or  article,  whether  manufactured  or  not,  or  in  case  of  milk,  if 


532  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

it  is  produced  by  a  diseased  animal.  6.  If  it  is  colored,  coated,  polished,  or 
powdered  in  such  a  manner  as  to  conceal  its  damaged  or  inferior  condition, 
or  if  by  any  means  it  is  made  to  appear  better  or  of  greater  value  than  it  is. 
7.  If  it  contains  any  added  substance  or  ingredient  which  is  poisonous  or  in- 
jurious to  health.  8.  If  it  contains  any  added  antiseptic  or  preservative  sub- 
stance, except  common  table  salt,  saltpetre,  cane  sugar,  alcohol,  vinegar,  spices, 
or,  in  smoked  food,  the  natural  products  of  the  smoking  process;  but  this 
paragraph  shall  not  be  construed  as  permitting  the  use  of  cane  sugar  in  maple 
syrup,  maple  sugar,  honey,  cocoa,  or  any  other  food  product  in  which  the 
presence  of  cane  sugar  as  a  preservative  is  unnecessary.  Furthermore,  the 
provisions  of  this  definition  shall  not  apply  to  any  such  article  if  it  bears  a 
label  on  which  the  presence  and  the  percentage  of  every  such  antiseptic  or 
preservative  substance  are  clearly  indicated,  nor  shall  it  apply  to  such  portions 
of  suitable  preservative  substances  as  are  used  as  a  surface  application  for  pre- 
serving dried  fish  or  meat,  or  as  exist  in  animal  or  vegetable  tissues  as  a  natural 
component  thereof,  but  it  shall  apply  to  additional  quantities.  The  provisions 
of  this  and  the  two  preceding  sections  relative  to  food  shall  not  apply  to  mix- 
tures or  compounds  not  injurious  to  health  and  which  are  recognized  as  ordinary 
articles  or  ingredients  of  articles  of  food,  if  every  package  sold  or  offered  for 
saje  is  distinctly  labeled  as  a  mixture  or  compound  with  the  name  and  per  cent 
of  each  ingredient  therein. 

Section  24.   Penalties  : 

Whoever  falsely  stamps  or  labels  any  cans,  jars,  or  other  packages  contain- 
ing fruit  or  food  of  any  kind,  or  knowingly  permits  such  stamping  or  labeling, 
or,  except  as  hereinafter  provided,  violates  any  of  the  provisions  of  sections 
sixteen  to  twenty-seven,  inclusive,  shall  be  punished  by  a  fine  of  not  less  than 
twenty-five  nor  more  than  five  hundred  dollars ;  and  whoever  sells  such  goods 
so  falsely  stamped  or  labeled  shall  be  punished  by  a  fine  of  not  less  than  ten 
nor  more  than  one  hundred  dollars. 

Section  55.    Sale  of  adulterated,  diseased,  or  skimmed  milk ;  penalties  : 

Whoever,  himself  or  by  his  servant  or  agent,  or  as  the  servant  or  agent  of 
another  person,  sells,  exchanges,  or  delivers,  or  has  in  his  custody  or  posses- 
sion with  intent  to  sell,  exchange,  or  deliver,  or  exposes  or  offers  for  sale  or 
exchange,  adulterated  milk  or  milk  to  which  water  or  any  foreign  substance 
has  been  added,  or  milk  produced  from  cows  which  have  been  fed  on  the 
refuse  of  distilleries,  or  from  sick  or  diseased  cows,  or,  as  pure  milk,  milk  from 
which  the  cream  or  a  part  thereof  has  been  removed,  and  whoever  sells,  ex- 
changes, or  delivers,  or  has  in  his  custody  or  possession  with  intent  to  sell, 
exchange,  or  deliver,  skimmed  milk  containing  less  than  nine  and  three-tenths 
per  cent  of  milk  solids  exclusive  of  fat,  shall  for  a  first  offence  be  punished  by 
a  fine  of  not  less  than  fifty  nor  more  than  two  hundred  dollars,  for  a  second 
offence  by  a  fine  of  not  less  than  one  hundred  nor  more  than  three  hundred 
dollars,  and  for  a  subsequent  offence  by  a  fine  of  fifty  dollars  and  by  imprison- 
ment for  not  less  than  sixty  nor  more  than  ninety  days. 


THE  GROCER  533 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

HIGGINBOTHAM,  HARLOW  N.    The  Making  of  a  Merchant.    Forbes  &  Com- 
pany, Chicago,  1906. 

Business  Periodicals 

The  Grocers'  Magazine,  Boston. 

The  New  England  Grocer  and  Tradesman,  Boston. 


THE  MACHINIST 

(From  "  Vocations  for  Boys,"  issued  by  the  Vocation  Bureau  of  Boston) 

THE  TRADE:   ITS  DIVISIONS,  DANGERS,  CONDITIONS, 
AND  FUTURE 

The  trade  of  the  machinist  consists  in  the  manufacture,  installing, 
and  repair  of  machinery ;  or,  "A  machinist  is  a  constructor  of 
machines  and  engines,  or  one  versed  in  the  principles  of  machines ; 
in  the  general  sense,  one  who  invents  or  constructs  mechanical 
devices  of  any  kind." 

The  two  grand  divisions  of  the  occupation  are  general  machine 
work  and  tool  making.  The  manufacturing  branch  of  the  industry, 
which  is  almost  entirely  shop  work,  has  the  following  specialized 
lines  or  divisions :  the  all-round  machinist,  only  a  very  small 
per  cent  of  those  engaged  in  the  occupation ;  the  lathe  hand ; 
the  planer  hand  ;  the  milling-machine  hand  ;  the  drill-press  hand  ; 
the  erecting-  and  assembling-shop  hand  ;  the  tool,  jig,  and  die 
hand  (a  division  itself  highly  specialized) ;  the  automatic-machine 
operator,  who  is  hardly  a  machinist ;  and  the  outside  erecting  and 
assembling  hand,  who  must  have  good  judgment  and  often  expert 
knowledge  of  the  machine  to  be  erected.  Another  division  in  the 
industry,  in  some  cases  quite  separate,  in  others  not,  is  that  of 
the  machine  repairer,  who  ranks  with  the  erector  and  assembler. 

Pattern  and  model  making  is  connected  with  most  branches  of 
the  machine  trade.  Patterns  and  models  are  made  both  in  metal 
and  in  wood.  The  worker  in  metal  is  usually  a  machinist  or  a 
person  of  natural  ability  in  the  use  of  machinery  ;  the  worker  in 
wood  is  merely  a  skilled  mechanic. 

Many  machinists  engage  in  several  of  the  divisions  of  the 
industry  or  pass  readily  from  one  to  another.  Employees  of  the 
government  generally  remain  fixed  in  one. 

The  four  divisions  of  persons  connected  with  the  occupation, 

534 


THE  MACHINIST  535 

receiving  wages  or  salary,  are  the  apprentice  boy,  the  journeyman, 
the  foreman,  and  the  superintendent. 

The  chief  danger  of  the  occupation  is  from  dust  in  cutting 
and  grinding  metals,  especially  in  brass  working.  There  is  danger 
from  machinery,  with  hard  labor  and  strain  in  handling  heavy 
materials  or  working  on  heavy  products.  There  is  considerable 
monotony,  also,  in  working  on  automatic  machines.  On  the  other 
hand,  some  shops  manufacture  such  a  variety  of  products  —  one 
shop  visited  manufacturing  3800  different  kinds  of  tools — that 
the  workman's  interest  is  steadily  maintained. 

There  is  keen  competition  in  the  general  lines  of  the  industry. 
Many  machine  shops  manufacture  special  machines,  tools,  or  articles, 
some  of  which  are  under  patent  control  and  are  thereby  less  affected 
by  competition.  The  field  of  the  machinist  has  been  enlarged  in 
recent  years  by  the  growth  of  the  automobile  industry. 

The  high  specialization  of  processes  at  the  present  time  and 
constant  improvements  in  the  machinery  used  in  the  modern  shops 
affect  the  number  of  employees,  making  it  comparatively  less  in 
the  individual  shop  in  most  cases  year  by  year,  while  the  entire 
industry  enlarges. 

There  is  an  ever-widening  field  for  the  expert  machinist,  and 
the  future  of  the  industry  will  be  good  in  all  lines  because  of  the 
constantly  increasing  demands  of  the  industrial  world. 

PAY,  POSITIONS,  AND  OPPORTUNITIES 

Pay  at  the  beginning  ranges  from  $3  to  $8  a  week,  according 
to  age,  conditions  of  apprenticeship,  or  shop  entered.  Outside  of 
the  apprenticeship  system,  it  varies  generally  from  $4  to  $6  a  week. 
The  average  yearly  increase  for  boys  is  small,  being  usually  $i  a 
week  each  year. 

Boys  do  errands,  act  as  messengers  or  as  assistants  to  machin- 
ists, do  drilling,  milling,  lathe  work,  planing,  shaping,  and  run 
light  machines.  A  young  man,  after  a  period  of  learning  such 
processes,  earns  from  $12  to  $15  a  week  in  most  shops.  In  the 
general  trade  the  wages  paid  are  as  follows  :  in  lathe  and  planer 
work,  erecting  and  assembling,  and  operating  automatic  machines, 
from  $i.5Oto$2.5oa  day  ;  in  milling  and  drill-press  work,  $1.25 


536  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to  $2  a  day  ;  in  tool,  jig,  and  die  making,  from  $2.50  to  $4.50 
a  day;  in  outdoor  erecting  and  assembling,  from  $2.50  to  $4.50, 
with  traveling  or  personal  expenses  added  in  some  cases ;  in  the 
repair  shop,  $2.50  to  $4  ;  the  journeyman  who  has  finished  his 
apprenticeship  or  period  of  learning  earns  $2.50  or  $2.75  a  day; 
a  foreman  earns  from  $21  to  $25  a  week.  The  salary  of  a  super- 
intendent depends  mainly  on  the  man,  ranging  from  some  hun- 
dreds of  dollars  a  year  in  the  small  shop  to  many  thousand  in  the 
great  corporation.  The  average  machinist  in  Boston  earns  about 
$16  a  week,  in  the  state  about  $600  a  year,  and  the  average 
workman  in  the  trade  in  the  United  States  about  $400  a  year, 
taking  into  consideration  the  conditions  of  unemployment  usually 
existing.  Anyone  earning  less  than  $2  is  sometimes  ranked  as  a 
helper ;  one  getting  over  $2.50,  an  expert. 

In  repair  shops  very  few  boys  are  employed,  trained  machinists 
being  regularly  drawn  from  other  branches  of  the  industry. 

Firms  which  conduct  an  apprenticeship  system  do  not  generally 
desire  boys  on  any  other  basis,  and  give  to  the  few  taken  outside 
of  the  system  only  unimportant  duties,  as  errand  and  messenger 
service,  which  afford  little  chance  to  learn  and  advance  in  the 
occupation. 

Outside  of  the  trade  of  the  machinist,  boys  who  have  had  some 
business  training  do  office  work  in  machine  shops,  as  bookkeepers, 
accountants,  and  stock-ledger  keepers,  at  about  the  same  pay  as 
such  service  brings  in  other  industries. 

Outside  of  any  single,  easy  process,  it  takes  at  least  three  years 
to  make  a  boy  worth  much  to  an  employer  in  a  machine  shop. 
Advancement  is  slow  to  the  age  of  twenty  or  twenty-one. 

APPRENTICESHIP  IN  THE  TRADE 

Apprenticeship  is  as  old  as  the  trade  itself.  In  earlier  times 
the  boy  learned  by  observing  and  assisting  the  master  machinist 
for  a  longer  or  shorter  period.  The  result  was  usually  a  workman 
along  narrowly  specialized  lines.  The  later  method  involves  broad 
lines  of  general  instruction,  for  long  periods,  in  training  schools 
or  systems  connected  with  large  establishments  and  under  the 
oversight  of  men  of  the  highest  skill  in  the  trade. 


THE  MACHINIST  537 

The  modern  apprenticeship  system  in  the  various  trades  in  this 
country  had  its  beginning  in  the  years  from  1860  to  1872  ;  and 
from  the  latest  statistics  available  forty-three  states  have  laws  re- 
lating to  the  employment  of  apprentices.  Thirty-eight  states  pro- 
vide that  in  addition  to  the  trade  the  apprentice  shall  be  taught 
the  common  English  branches  of  education  in  some  public  or 
other  school,  or  through  such  means  as  the  employer  may  provide. 

The  older  and  larger  machine  shops  in  Boston  and  vicinity 
have  some  full  or  partial  apprenticeship  system,  and  the  general 
conditions  connected  with  it  are  as  follows : 

1 .  There  is  an  indenture  or  agreement  of  apprenticeship. 

2.  The  age  preferred  for  entering  is  sixteen  or  seventeen,  and 

the  age  limits  are  fifteen  and  eighteen. 

3.  The  usual  length  of  time  required  is  four  years,  with  a  proba- 

tionary period  of  two  months. 

4.  The  pay  is  generally  8  cents  an  hour  the  first  year,  10  cents 

the  second  year,  12^  cents  the  third  year,  and  15  cents  the 
fourth  year. 

5.  There  is  usually  a  bonus  of  $100  payable  at  the  end  of  the 

period  of  apprenticeship.  Against  this  bonus  each  appren- 
tice may  be  charged  for  tools,  technical  books,  drafting 
equipment,  etc. 

6.  Time  used  in  study  counts  as  actual  service  in  the  shop. 

7.  Wages  are  paid  weekly,  for  fifty-four  hours  in  the  winter,  and 

fifty-five  in  summer. 

In  the  apprenticeship  system  of  one  large  corporation,  for 
machinists,  work  is  given  during  the  first  six  months  on  the 
bolt  and  milling  machines  and  on  small  tools ;  on  general  bench 
work  for  the  second  six  months,  as  shaping  and  filing ;  for  the 
third  six  months  boys  work  under  the  direction  of  various  machin- 
ists, on  drills,  planers,  grinders,  lathes,  and  boring  mills ;  the 
fourth  six  months  they  are  given  more  difficult  work,  on  slotters, 
planers,  and  shapers.  At  the  beginning  of  the  third  year  the 
apprentice  is  placed  at  whatever  tool  he  has  shown  himself  to 
be  most  efficient  with  and  is  given  work  which  will  develop  his 
special  ability.  After  the  first  six  months,  school  work  is  required 
of  the  apprentice,  unless  he  shows  that  he  is  already  proficient 


538  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

therein.  During  the  period  of  probation,  apprentices  are  required  to 
serve  as  messengers,  in  office  duties,  or  in  any  miscellaneous  service. 
The  system  of  another  large  corporation  is  here  given  in  full, 
by  permission  : 

APPRENTICE  COURSES  FOR  MACHINISTS,  DIE  AND  TOOL  MAKERS, 
AND  PATTERN  MAKERS 

These  courses  are  open  to  boys  of  at  least  fifteen  years  of  age  who  have 
had  a  grammar-school  education  or  its  equivalent,  and  who  are  physically  strong 
enough  to  undertake  the  prescribed  work. 

The  courses  last  four  years  (including  the  trial  period). 
Apprentices  are  paid  a  compensation  of : 

Eight  (8)  cents  for  each  hour  of  actual  service  for  the  first  half  year ; 
Ten  (10)  cents  for  each  hour  of  actual  service  for  the  second  half  year; 
Twelve  (12)  cents  for  each  hour  of  actual  service  for  the  second  year; 
Fourteen (i 4)  cents  for  each  hour  of  actual  service  for  the  third  year; 
Sixteen  and  one  half  (i6£)  cents  for  each  hour  of  actual  service  for  the 

fourth  year. 

The  regular  working  hours  are  fifty-five  per  week,  so  that  the  weekly 
wage's,  even  at  the  beginning,  are  sufficient  for  self-support. 

The  completion  of  the  full  term  of  apprenticeship  entitles  the  graduated 
apprentice  to  a  "  Certificate  of  Apprenticeship "  and  a  cash  bonus  of  one 
hundred  dollars  ($100). 

The  classroom  instruction  is  based  on  a  grammar-school  education,  and 
includes  arithmetic,  algebra,  geometry,  and  plane  trigonometry,  physics  as  it 
concerns  simple  machines,  power  transmission,  strength  of  materials,  machine 
design,  magnetism  and  electricity,  mechanical  drawing  and  jig  and  fixture  de- 
sign. For  pattern-maker  apprentices  an  extended  course  in  mechanical  drawing 
is  substituted  for  jig  and  fixture  design  and  for  part  of  the  physics  instruction. 

While  only  a  small  percentage  of  machinists  serve  an  apprentice- 
ship, this  system  helps  make  the  all-round  machinist  and  a  fair  propor- 
tion of  the  most  skillful  workmen  in  the  various  branches  of  the  trade. 

In  the  first  corporation  mentioned  about  five  per  cent  of  all 
employees  at  the  present  time  are  serving  in  some  part  of  the 
apprenticeship  system. 

Union  shops  allow  one  apprentice  for  the  shop  and  one  for 
each  five  machinists. 

THE  BOY:   QUALITIES  AND  TRAINING  REQUIRED 
In  this  occupation  a  boy  is  rarely  taken  under  fifteen  years  of 
age.    From  sixteen  to  eighteen  is  the  age  very  generally  preferred. 


THE  MACHINIST  539 

Only  the  larger  firms  have  a  regular  apprenticeship  system,  since 
young  men  after  learning  the  trade  pass  so  readily  from  one  shop 
to  another  or  from  one  branch  of  the  trade  to  another. 

Boys  should  have  a  grammar-school  education.  In  the  occupa- 
tion are  found  many  high-school  and  technical-school  graduates, 
these  quite  generally  becoming  foremen  or  superintendents.  It  is 
an  advantage  for  young  men  in  machine  shops  to  continue  their 
studies  in  mathematics  and  drawing  in  evening  schools  or  classes. 

A  boy  should  have  natural  mechanical  skill  or  adaptability  to 
tool  work  and  handwork.  He  should  be  strong,  energetic,  and  of 
good  physique. 

Three  important  factors  in  advancement  in  this  trade  are  :  first, 
mastery  of  the  work  in  hand ;  second,  the  ability,  the  health, 
and  the  energy  to  master  the  related  studies  bearing  on  the  trade, 
such  as  shop  mathematics,  shop  English,  shop  drawing,  and  shop 
science  and  practice ;  third,  the  development  of  the  qualities  of 
management. 

COMMENTS  OF  PEOPLE  IN  THE  TRADE 

It  is  a  detriment  to  a  boy  to  specialize.  The  constant  repetition  of  a  process 
dulls  ambition  and  narrows  interest  and  power. 

We  will  not  hire  the  indifferent,  street-corner  boy.  Some  parts  of  the  year 
it  is  very  difficult  to  find  any  suitable  ones.  We  want  the  best  out  of  the 
schools,  and  offer  them  a  good  future. 

The  chief  trouble  with  boys  in  this  industry  is  their  inclination  to  go  from 
shop  to  shop,  while  yet  practically  learners  only. 

The  repair  shop  is  a  place  for  expert  workmen  only,  masters  of  the  machines 
which  they  have  to  repair. 

Boys  naturally  want  to  earn  more  than  is  possible  in  learning  a  trade,  and 
it  is  not  always  easy  to  maintain  an  apprenticeship  system  in  this  country. 
The  present  high  industrial  organization  calls  for  short  cuts  and  time-saving 
methods.  The  machinist,  however,  should  serve  several  years  to  become  an 
expert  workman. 

The  chances  of  a  boy  to  learn  are  better  in  a  small  shop,  where  he  can 
have  the  constant  personal  attention  of  an  employer  or  foreman. 

Machinists  are  quite  generally  satisfied  with  their  vocation,  coming  into  it 
after  some  deliberation  and  sometimes  through  a  system  of  apprenticeship. 

The  past  in  this  occupation  has  been  good,  and  the  future  has  a  fair  out- 
look. There  is  a  lack  still  of  skilled  machinists. 


540 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


COMMENTS  FROM  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  BOARD  OF  HEALTH  REPORT, 
DANGEROUS  OCCUPATIONS,  1907 

Manufacture  of  Machinery,  Machine  Parts,  and  Metal  Supplies 

In  the  manufacture  of  machinery  and  metal  supplies  there  are  several 
operations  which  involve  exposure  to  dust,  fumes,  vapors,  or  extreme  heat. 
These  include  making  castings,  cleaning  and  smoothing,  grinding  and  polish- 
ing, and  scaling. 

While  the  nature  of  some  of  the  processes  is  such  as  to  warrant  classifica- 
tion of  this  industry  with  the  dangerous  trades,  the  conditions  under  which 
the  work  is  done  are  very  largely  responsible  for  the  injurious  effects  on  the 
health  of  the  employees,  and  these  conditions  are  to  a  considerable  extent 
avoidable  or  at  least  susceptible  of  improvement. 


STATISTICS  OF  MANUFACTURE,  MASSACHUSETTS,  1908 
FOUNDRY  AND  MACHINE-SHOP  PRODUCTS 

THE  STATE  BOSTON 

Number  of  establishments     ...........                  519  106 

Capital  devoted  to  production  ..........    $60,525,711     $11,152,410 

Value  of  stock  and  materials  used     ........    $20,791,813  $2,976,147 

Amount  of  wages  paid  during  the  year     ......    $18,699,125  $2,200,481 

Average  yearly  earnings    ............           $601.03  $681.47 

Value  of  product   ...............    $56,208,811  $7,171,175 

Males  employed     ...............             30,661  319° 

Females  employed     ..............                  451  39 

Both  sexes     .................             3i>ii2  3229 

Smallest  number    ............    ...             25,874  2576 

Greatest  number    ...............            37*863  4045 


THE  STATE  CENSUS,  MASSACHUSETTS,  1885-1905 


GROWTH  OF  THE  INDUSTRY  BY  DECADES 


Number  of  establishments  .    . 

Capital  invested 

Value  of  product 

Average  number  of  employees 
Total  amount  paid  in  wages   . 
Average  yearly  earnings     .    . 
Population  of  the  state  .    .    . 


1885 

622 

$24,743-677 
$20,635,970 

14,644 

$7,249,855 

$495-07 

i,942,i4I 


1895 

660 

$39,254,244 

$31,858,110 

21,598 

$11,624,673 


2,500,183 


1905 


709 


$59,621,469 

33.182 

$19,271,846 

$580.79 

3,003,680 


PER  CENT  OF 
INCREASE 
1885-1905 
12.38 
200.63 
188.92 
126.59 
164.44 

I7-31 
54.66 


NOTE.  The  small  increase  in  the  number  of  establishments  is  due  in  part  to  the  method 
of  census  enumeration  in  1905,  which  included  only  those  establishments  whose  yearly  output 
in  goods  amounted  to  at  least  $500,  and  in  part  to  the  tendency  toward  large-scale  enterprise. 


THE  MACHINIST  541 

SELECTED  OCCUPATIONS,  MASSACHUSETTS,  1905 
AGE  PERIODS  FOR  MACHINISTS  IN  EMPLOYMENT 

MACHIN- 

AGGREGATE  MACHINISTS  ISTS' 

Males  Females    Totals       Males  Females  Totals    HELPERS 

Under  16  years no  no  32  32  78 

16  to  24  years,  inclusive     .    .  6,835  2        6,837  4,986  2        4,988  1,849 

25  to  44  years,  inclusive      .    .  15,810  i       15,811  15,278  I       15.279  532 

45  to  64  years,  inclusive     .    .  6,069  6,069  5,882  5,882  187 

65  years  and  over,  and  unknown  782  782  767  767  15 

Aggregate  number     ....    29,606      3      29,609     26,945      3      26,948      2,661 

UNITED  CENSUS,  MANUFACTURES,  MASSACHUSETTS,  1905 

MACHINES  AND  MACHINERY 

Number  of  establishments 709 

Private  firms 479 

Corporations 222 

Industrial  combinations 8 

Partners  and  stockholders 7512 

Amount  of  capital  invested $75,797, 145 

Value  of  stock  used $22,273,370 

Value  of  goods  made $59,621,469 

Persons  employed 

Average  number 33,182 

Men  16  years  and  over 32>395 

Women  16  years  and  over 539 

Children  under  16  years 248 

Smallest  number 27,736 

Greatest  number 38,984 

Excess  of  greatest  over  smallest 11,248 

Total  amount  paid  in  wages $19,271,846 

Average  yearly  earnings $580.79 

Number  of  salaried  persons 2836 

Total  amount  paid  in  salaries $3,814,114 

Average  salaries $1,344.89 

Average  proportion  of  business  done  (per  cent) 61.96 

Average  number  of  days  in  operation 290.82 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

COMPTON,  ARTHUR  G.     First  Lessons  in  Metal  Working.    John  Wiley  & 

Sons,  New  York,   1908. 
Cyclopedia  of  Modern  Shop  Practice,  edited  by  H.  M.  Raymond,  American 

Technical  Society,  Chicago,  1907. 

JAMIESON,  ANDREW.  Applied  Mechanics.  Charles  Griffin  &  Co.,  London,  1905. 
MASON,  OTIS  S.    The  Origins  of  Invention.    Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New 

York,  1907. 

Trade  Periodicals 
Machinery. 

The  American  Machinist, 
The  Scientific  American. 


OCCUPATIONS  AND  INDUSTRIES  OPEN  TO 

CHILDREN  BETWEEN  FOURTEEN  AND 

SIXTEEN  YEARS  OF  AGE 

BY  ANNE  DAVIS 

(Published  by  the  Board  of  Education,  Chicago,  1914) 
THE  KINDS  OF  INDUSTRIES  OPEN  TO  CHILDREN 

Each  year  in  Chicago  from  twelve  to  fifteen  thousand  children 
between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  years  leave  school  to  go 
to  work.  The  opportunities  offered  to  these  children  are  few.  Not 
only  does  the  Child  Labor  Law  of  Illinois  forbid  children  to  oper- 
ate dangerous  machinery  or  to  be  engaged  in  any  employment 
that  might  be  "  dangerous  to  life  or  limb  "  but  several  other  factors 
prohibit  children  from  entering  into  desirable  occupations.  For 
instance,  in  dressmaking,  millinery,  and  other  skilled  trades  for 
girls  the  demand  is  more  and  more  for  the  older  girl,  with  some 
maturity  and  reliability  and,  if  possible,  with  some  training.  The 
union  rules  prohibit  boys  from  entering  the  skilled  trades  until 
they  are  sixteen.  Both  boys  and  girls  are  considered  too  careless 
and  immature  for  clerical  work,  so  we  find  only  a  few  so  young 
in  offices.  In  brief,  practically  the  only  work  open  to  the  children 
who  leave  school  at  the  legal  age  of  fourteen  is  the  most  unskilled 
and  poorly  paid. 

Most  of  the  employment  open  to  these  young  wage  earners  is 
offered  by  box  factories,  candy  factories,  tailor  shops,  and  depart- 
ment stores.  Even  some  individual  establishments  in  this  group 
have  raised  the  minimum  age  of  all  their  employees  to  sixteen 
because  the  younger  boys  or  girls  are  too  "  childish,"  and  they  have 
found  it  "  an  economic  waste  to  bother  with  them."  Outside  of  this 
group  of  child-employing  industries  there  is  the  errand  work  and 
messenger  work  for  boys,  which,  however,  seldom  leads  to  anything. 

542 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  CHILDREN  543 

Other  industries  and  occupations  than  those  mentioned  employ 
a  relatively  small  number  of  children  under  sixteen  and  thus  de- 
serve a  brief  treatment.  The  principal  industries  in  this  last-named 
group  are  the  following :  engraving  (p.  6)  ;  boot  and  shoe  manu- 
facturing (p.  6) ;  molding  and  picture-frame  manufacturing  (p.  6) ; 
knitting  (p.  6) ;  laundry  work  (p.  7) ;  office  work  (p.  7) ;  bookbinding 
(p.  7) ;  press  clipping  (p.  8) ;  novelty  work  (p.  8)  ;  and  bakery 
work  (p.  8). 

Engraving.  Most  engraving  houses  employ  young  girls  to  lay 
the  card  on  the  copper  plate,  since  the  printer  who  inks  and 
polishes  the  plate  cannot  touch  the  card  without  soiling  it. 
There  is  no  chance  for  advancement  in  this  work  for  the  girl 
under  sixteen,  and  the  wages  seldom  exceed  $4. 

Boot  and  shoe  manufacturing.  In  boot  and  shoe  factories  boys 
and  girls  tie  and  cut  threads,  polish  and  clean  shoes,  tag  and  lace 
and  assemble  parts  of  shoes,  and  do  light  packing.  The  usual  wage 
is  $3.50.  Though  the  work  for  the  boy  or  girl  under  sixteen 
requires  no  skill,  the  machine  operating  offers  fairly  good  oppor- 
tunities to  those  older.  The  usual  wage  for  an  experienced  operator 
is  $12,  though  those  who  are  more  expert  can  earn  from  $14  to 
$20.  On  account  of  the  monotony  of  the  beginner's  work,  however, 
few  children  remain  in  the  industry  until  they  are  old  enough  for 
the  more  skilled  processes. 

Molding  and  picture-frame  manufacturing.  In  molding  and 
picture-frame  factories  boys  are  employed  to  wrap  frames  in  paper 
and  sawdust  before  packing  in  crates,  to  carry  moldings  to  different 
parts  of  the  factory,  and  to  take  moldings  from  machines  which 
apply  whiting.  Girls  wrap  moldings  and  glue  ornaments  on  the 
frames.  For  this  work  the  boys  and  girls  are  paid  from  $3.50  to 
$5  a  week.  The  boys,  if  they  stay  until  they  are  sixteen,  may  be 
taught  the  more  skilled  parts  of  the  trade,  such  as  gold  and  -silver 
gilding,  hand  carving,  veneering,  sizing  and  graining,  engraving, 
and  lacquering.  The  older  girls  apply  whiting  to  the  frames  before 
they  are  gilded  and  also  do  some  gilding.  The  maximum  wage  in 
picture-frame  making  is  $30  a  week.  The  usual  wage  is  from  $15 
to  $20.  The  maximum  wage  for  girls  is  $10,  but  few  earn  more 
than  $7  or  $8. 


544  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Knitting.  In  knitting  mills,  girls  cut  threads,  sort,  count,  wrap 
and  label,  tie  tags  on  gloves,  and  run  errands  in  the  factory.  There 
is  no  chance  for  advancement  until  the  girl  is  old  enough  to  learn 
to  operate  a  machine.  Girls  under  sixteen  earn  from  $2.50  to  $4 
a  week.  The  average  wage  for  experienced  operators  runs  from 
$9  to  $12,  few  ever  earning  as  high  as  $15. 

Laundry  work.  Laundries  employ  a  few  young  girls  to  "shake" 
and  mark  clothes.  Occasionally  they  wrap  the  laundry  for  delivery. 
They  earn  from  $3.50  to  $4.  The  outlook  for  the  fourteen-to- 
sixteen-year-old  girl  is  poor.  No  girl  should  be  encouraged  to 
enter  work  of  this  sort  until  she  is  eighteen  years  of  age  and  is 
strong  enough  to  endure  the  constant  standing. 

Office  work.  In  office  work  there  are  varying  opportunities 
offered.  A  fourteen-year-old  boy  or  girl  may  succeed  in  obtaining 
an  office  position  that  will  lead  to  something,  but  ordinarily,  even 
where  the  child  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  has  had  a  business-college 
training,  he  has  not  sufficient  education  back  of  him  to  advance 
very  far.  Moreover,  employers  are  unwilling  to  employ  children 
for  office  positions,  because  they  are  too  immature  for  the  work. 
Practically  the  only  office  work  open  to  the  child  under  sixteen 
is  such  mechanical  labor  as  pasting,  filing,  folding,  inserting,  and 
addressing  and  opening  mail.  Of  this,  the  circular  work  and  ad- 
dressing is  often  temporary.  The  wages  vary  from  $3.50  to  $6 
per  week,  and  in  no  case  is  there  likely  to  be  much  "  future." 

Bookbinding.  A  few  binderies  employ  girls  under  sixteen  to 
fold  by  hand  printed  sheets  to  the  size  of  the  pages  and  to  feed 
wire-stitching  machines.  The  work  of  the  fourteen-year  girl  is 
mechanical  and  often  temporary ;  consequently  it  is  better  for 
girls  to  enter  the  trade  at  sixteen.  The  introduction  of  machinery 
has  displaced  some  of  the  skilled  handwork,  but  still  there  is  a 
fairly  good  opportunity  in  the  trade  for  the  older  girl. 

Girls  under  sixteen  generally  earn  only  $3.50  or  $4  a  week  — 
seldom  more  than  $5  a  week.  Much  of  the  work  is  paid  on  a 
piece  basis,  and  experienced  girls  earn  as  high  as  $18  and  $20 
a  week  during  the  busy  season.  The  usual  wage  is  from  $9  to 
$14  a.  week.  Since  bookbinding  is  considered  a  fairly  good  trade 
for  girls,  it  will  be  treated  more  fully  in  another  pamphlet. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  CHILDREN  545 

Novelty  work.  Novelty  work  includes  metal,  paper,  celluloid, 
jewelry,  and  leather  novelties,  and  postal  cards  and  calendars. 
More  girls  than  boys  are  employed  at  this  work.  They  do  such 
simple  processes  as  gluing  stones  in  rings  ;  carding  jewelry  ;  tying 
ribbons  and  strings  on  invitations  and  calendars ;  stringing  bags ; 
pasting ;  mounting ;  putting  leather  in  watch  fobs ;  assembling, 
sorting,  counting,  and  coloring  postal  cards.  The  beginner  gener- 
ally earns  from  $3  to  $5.  There  is  no  opportunity  for  advance- 
ment either  in  wage  or  manual  skill,  and  the  work  is  seasonal. 
The  best-paid  workers  seldom  receive  more  than  $7  or  $8  a  week. 

Press  clipping.  Press-clipping  bureaus  employ  girls  under  six- 
teen to  clip  articles  from  newspapers,  paying  them  $3.50  and  $4 
a  week.  "  Clipping  "  is  mechanical  work  and  requires  more  speed 
than  intelligence.  If  a  girl  is  quick  and  fairly  bright  she  may  be 
promoted  to  the  position  of  "reader,"  who  reads  and  marks  articles 
to  be  clipped.  The  best  readers  never  earn  more  than  $9  a  week. 
Not  only  is  there  no  future  in  the  work,  but  it  prepares  a  girl  for 
no  other  line  of  work. 

Bakeries.  Both  boys  and  girls  are  employed  in  smaller  bakeries 
to  pack  and  wrap,  ice  cakes,  and  carry  trays.  In  the  large  biscuit 
and  cracker  factories  a  few  children  pack  and  label,  but  older 
girls  are  preferred. 

Besides  the  trades  mentioned,  soap,  ink,  seed  and  spice,  druggist- 
supplies,  extract,  and  preserved-fruit  manufacturing  establishments 
employ  children  to  pack,  bottle,  and  label.  The  work  is  very  un- 
skilled and  seasonal.  The  wages  seldom  exceed  $6  or  $7. 

It  can  readily  be  seen  that  all  of  this  miscellaneous  work  open 
to  the  child  under  sixteen  is  of  an  unskilled  nature  and  furnishes 
little  or  no  training  that  may  later  prove  valuable.  Children  are 
likely  to  get  into  the  rut  of  factory  work,  losing  all  incentive  and 
ambition  to  progress,  or  to  acquire  the  habit  of  continual  shifting 
from  one  job  to  another.  Even  where  a  position  may  broaden  out 
into  something  better  after  the  age  of  sixteen  is  reached,  the  child, 
with  a  child's  restlessness  and  lack  of  foresight,  often  changes  to 
something  that  appeals  simply  on  account  of  its  novelty.  In  every 
case  the  years  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  spent  at  work  afford 
little  gain  either  in  money  or  training  and  mean  much  actual  loss 


546  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

in  strength  and  mental  development.  This  is  true  not  only  of  the 
work  already  briefly  discussed  but  of  the  five  trades  mentioned 
above,  which  employ  the  greatest  number  of  children  just  leaving 
school.  These  trades  it  seems  necessary  to  discuss  more  fully. 


PAPER-BOX  MAKING 

Paper-box  manufacturing  is  an  industry  in  which  a  comparatively 
large  number  of  girls  and  a  few  boys  under  sixteen  are  employed. 
The  industry  includes  the  making  of  paper  boxes  of  all  sizes  and 
for  all  purposes,  from  the  small  drug  box  to  the  jewelry  box,  which 
requires  a  fair  amount  of  skill  and  deftness  in  the  making.  Some 
factories  make  only  folding  boxes,  such  as  suit  boxes,  charlotte- 
russe  boxes,  oyster  and  ice-cream  boxes.  No  skill  is  required  in 
this  work.  Many  large  manufacturing  establishments  make  in  their 
own  factories  the  boxes  in  which  their  own  goods  are  packed.  Some 
establishments,  in  which  only  large  boxes  are  made,  do  not  employ 
girls  under  sixteen.  Boys  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  are  employed 
as  errand  boys,  from  which  they  may  advance  after  they  are  six- 
teen to  the  cornering  machines  and  later  to  the  scoring  machines. 
The  trade  is,  however,  preeminently  for  women  and  girls. 

Processes.  The  young  girl  just  beginning  the  work  may  do  four 
processes  —  bending  up,  pony  covering,  turning  in,  and  closing 
and  tying  of  the  boxes.  The  pony-covering  machine  is  a  hand 
machine,  consisting  of  a  reel  which  holds  the  paper,  a  glue  pot 
in  which  a  copper  roller  revolves,  and  a  wooden  form  onto  which 
the  box  fits.  The  form  turns  as  the  girl  at  the  machine  draws  the 
covering  paper  over  the  roller  and  glues  it  to  the  box,  rubbing  it 
smooth  until  all  four  sides  are  covered.  After  the  box  is  covered, 
the  paper  which  protrudes  over  the  edges  is  folded  in.  The  girl 
who  operates  the  covering  machine  generally  does  this  "  turning 
in,"  as  it  is  called,  if  the  box  is  small.  If  she  has  large  boxes  to 
cover,  she  is  usually  supplied  with  a  helper,  who  turns  in  the  edges. 
The  last  process  consists  of  putting  on  the  covers  and  tying  the 
finished  boxes  into  bundles  for  shipping. 

Girls  over  sixteen  are  generally  put  on  "  covering  machines," 
"staying  machines,"  or  "table  work."  The  covering  machine  is 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  CHILDREN  547 

practically  the  same  as  a  pony-covering  machine,  only  it  is  larger 
and  is  run  by  power.  The  operator  of  this  machine  always  has  a 
"  turning-in("  girl  to  assist  her. 

The  process  of  "staying"  consists  of  fastening  the  corners  of 
the  box  together  with  a  gummed  strip  of  manila  paper  which  runs 
over  a  wheel  and  through  a  trough  of  water.  After  this  paper  is 
adjusted,  a  heavy  iron  form,  which  fits  over  the  form  on  which  the 
box  rests,  presses  it  into  place.  The  staying  machine  is  the  only 
dangerous  machine  operated  by  girls.  The  operators  wear  steel 
finger  tips  to  protect  their  fingers. 

The  handwork,  or  table  work,  is  divided  into  several  classes. 
Beginners  paste  labels  on  boxes,  such  as  drug  boxes.  The  more 
skilled  workers  do  "  hingeing  "  — the  joining  of  the  bottom  and 
top  of  the  box  at  one  side  —  or  "necking,"  which  consists  of 
gluing  to  the  inside  of  boxes  projecting  rims  over  which  the  lid  fits. 
Some  of  this  work  requires  the  use  of  hot  glue  and  represents  the 
most  skilled  process  of  box  making,  necessitating  a  quick  and 
delicate  touch. 

Wages.  The  beginning  wage  for  girls  under  sixteen  varies  from 
$2.50  in  some  factories  to  $3.50  in  others.  The  girl  is  paid  on  a 
piece  basis  as  soon  as  she  can  earn  more  than  the  guaranteed  wage. 
Girls  under  sixteen  seldom  earn  more  than  $5  at  any  time. 

The  covering-  and  staying-machine  operators  earn  from  $6  to 
$11,  piecework.  The  handworkers,  after  they  have  become  ex- 
perienced, earn  $8  to  $12. 

The  boys  under  sixteen  generally  receive  $3.50  a  week.  Boys 
over  sixteen  employed  on  the  cornering  machines  earn  from  $6 
to  $8.  Operators  of  scoring  machines  earn  from  $14  to  $21  on 
a  piece  basis. 

Hours.  Girls  under  sixteen  work  from  7.30  to  4  o'clock  with 
one-half  hour  for  lunch.  Girls  over  sixteen  who  are  pieceworkers 
generally  work  from  7.30  to  5  P.M.,  with  one-half  hour  for  lunch, 
and  on  Saturdays  from  7  to  4.  In  June,  July,  and  August  the 
factories  close  at  I  P.M.  on  Saturdays. 

Seasons.  The  seasons  in  box  manufacturing  vary  somewhat  in 
different  shops,  depending  upon  the  product.  The  busy  season 
in  most  factories  begins  in  September  and  lasts  until  Christmas. 


548  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

January  and  a  part  of  February  are  generally  slack  months.  Busi- 
ness picks  up  until  Easter  or  a  little  later,  and  again  June  and 
July  are  slack. 

Paper-box  making  is  not  a  highly  skilled  trade,  and  the  processes 
are  easily  learned.  Except  in  the  best  work  there  is  little  scope 
for  intelligence,  and  a  mechanical  quickness  and  a  delicacy  of 
touch  are  all  that  is  required. 

Though  the  girl  who  is  employed  in  a  box  factory  is  generally 
poorly  paid,  working  conditions  are  on  the  whole  favorable.  The 
work  is  light,  and  the  air  is  free  from  dust  or  fumes.  The  odor 
from  the  glue,  though  disagreeable  at  first,  is  not  harmful.  Nearly 
all  of  the  girls  sit  at  their  work  and  in  a  fairly  upright  position. 
Both  the  hand  and  machine  work,  however,  are  monotonous  and 
afford  no  opportunity  for  mental  development. 

The  work  of  the  fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  girl  is  particularly 
mechanical.  Nearly  all  of  the  processes  which  she  now  performs 
can  be  done  by  machinery.  There  is  a  power  machine  into  which 
the  cardboard  after  it  is  "  scored  "  and  "cornered"  may  be  fed, 
and  come  out  a  finished  product ;  the  "  bending  up,"  "  covering," 
and  "  turning  in  "  may  all  be  completed  in  one  process.  The  ma- 
chine turns  out  about  sixty  boxes  a  minute.  The  girl  under  sixteen 
is  paid  five  cents  a  gross  for  making  this  same  box,  and  it  takes 
her  all  day  to  do  the  work  that  the  machine  can  turn  out  in  less 
than  one  hour.  With  the  introduction  of  machinery  fewer  girls 
under  sixteen  would  be  employed,  since  by  law  they  cannot  operate 
power  machines ;  accordingly  it  may  be  seen  that  there  would  be 
less  handwork  for  the  girl  over  sixteen.  The  presence  of  the 
fourteen-year-old  girl  in  the  box  industry  undoubtedly  keeps  the 
wages  from  rising  to  a  higher  level. 

DEPARTMENT  STORES 

Though  the  department  stores  employ  a  large  number  of  boys 
and  girls  fourteen  and  fifteen  years  of  age,  it  is  difficult  to  obtain 
any  definite  or  accurate  information  with  regard  to  wages  and 
opportunities.  On  the  whole,  the  work  seems  unpromising  for 
the  young  child.  Indeed,  two  of  the  largest  stores  in  the  city 
prefer  not  to  employ  children  under  sixteen  years  of  age. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  CHILDREN  549 

Boy  beginners  are  employed  as  errand  and  cash  boys.  From 
these  positions  they  may  work  into  office  or  stock  work.  The  stock 
boy  has  unlimited  opportunity  to  become  acquainted  with  the  vari- 
ous commodities  offered  for  sale  and  may  in  time  be  promoted  to 
the  position  of  junior  salesman,  then  to  that  of  salesman,  and 
finally  to  that  of  buyer ;  or  he  may  pass  to  the  advertising  office 
or  retail  office. 

The  girls  fourteen  and  fifteen  years  of  age  are  stock  and  errand 
girls.  They  may  be  advanced  from  these  positions  to  the  office, 
or  they  may  become  inspectors.  The  inspectors  are  promoted  to 
cashiers  and  then  saleswomen.  The  exceptional  girl  may  become 
head  of  a  department,  a  buyer,  or  an  assistant  buyer. 

Wages.  Girls  under  sixteen  earn  from  $3  to  $4  as  stock,  errand, 
and  office  girls.  The  usual  wage  of  salesgirls  is  about  $7.  After 
years  of  selling,  the  maximum  is  generally  $10  or  $12.  In  some 
stores,  where  the  girls  are  paid  on  a  commission  basis,  the  excep- 
tional girl  earns  as  high  as  $15  and  $18.  Buyers  receive  from 
$1000  to  $5000  in  very  exceptional  cases. 

Boys  under  sixteen  years  of  age  earn  from  $3  to  $4.50.  Boys 
of  sixteen  earn  from  $6  to  $8,  depending  upon  the  nature  of  the 
work.  The  salesmen  earn  from  $10  to  $20,  except  in  rare  cases 
of  ability.  The  buyer's  and  assistant  buyer's  salaries  are  variable 
according  to  the  ability  of  the  person.  The  buyers  receive  from 
$1000  or  $2000  to  several  thousand  dollars  a  year. 

Hours.  The  hours  are  from  8  or  8.30  A.M.  to  5.30  or  6  P.M., 
with  one  hour  for  lunch.  The  hours  vary  in  the  different  stores. 
During  the  holidays  and  when  stock  is  being  taken,  there  is 
some  night  work.  A  few  stores  close  at  I  o'clock  on  Saturdays 
during  the  summer  months. 

Seasons.  In  some  department  stores,  trade  is  in  a  degree  seasonal. 
During  the  holiday  season  and  at  the  time  of  special  sales  extra 
help  is  usually  taken  on,  to  be  laid  off  again  after  the  rush.  Busi- 
ness is  usually  slack  during  the  summer  months.  This  seasonal 
increase  does  not  affect  the  regular  employees. 

Chances  for  advancement.  The  chances  for  advancement  are 
rather  doubtful  for  the  boy  or  girl  who  begins  to  work  at  fourteen 
with  less  than  a  grammar-school  education  and  with  little  desire 


550  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to  get  ahead.  A  child  must  be  bright,  alert,  neat,  and  must  have 
some  initiative,  tact,  and  ambition,  to  work  up  to  the  more  promis- 
ing positions.  The  opportunities  for  boys  who  possess  these  quali- 
ties and  who  are  interested  in  their  line  of  work  are  unlimited. 
Only  a  few,  however,  succeed  in  reaching  the  higher  positions 
which  call  for  marked  ability.  The  majority  drop  out  when  they 
are  clerks  or  before,  because  they  are  not  capable  of  further 
advancement. 

With  regard  to  girls  the  chances  for  advancement  are  no  less 
uncertain,  although  65  or  70  per  cent  of  all  employees  are  girls. 
It  is  usually  from  two  to  five  years  before  the  girl  who  begins  to 
work  at  fourteen  becomes  a  salesgirl.  As  the  work  offers  a  great 
many  temptations  to  the  young  and  inexperienced  girl,  only  the 
mature  girl  of  strong  character  should  be  encouraged  to  enter  the 
department  stores,  and  then,  if  she  is  intelligent  and  discriminating. 

CANDY  MANUFACTURING 

Candy  manufacturing  in  Chicago  includes  the  making  of  hard 
candies,  such  as  stick  candy,  and  of  chocolates  and  bonbons. 
There  are  a  number  of  rather  low-grade  factories  that  employ  a 
good  many  girls  under  sixteen,  paying  them  low  wages.  Some  of 
the  better  candy  factories,  however,  are  refusing  to  employ  children. 

Processes.  The  mixing,  kneading,  and  pouring  the  fondant  into 
molds,  all  the  heavy  work  and  the  operating  of  machinery,  is  done 
by  men.  Candy  making  is  not  a  good  industry  for  boys  to  enter, 
since  there  is  little  chance  for  advancement,  the  work  is  unskilled, 
and  the  wages  low.  The  majority  of  boys  and  men  who  enter  the 
candy  industry  are  foreigners  who  are  willing  to  work  for  low 
wages.  Very  few  boys  under  sixteen  are  employed. 

The  girls  pack  and  wrap,  and  dip  chocolates  and  bonbons.  The 
beginner  —  the  girl  of  fourteen  — does  the  less  careful  packing 
and  wraps  chocolates  and  bar  candy  in  oiled,  glazed,  or  tinfoil 
paper.  She  may  be  advanced  from  this  work  to  the  fancy  packing 
or  to  chocolate  and  bonbon  dipping. 

The  chocolate  dipping  is  the  most  skilled  work  in  the  manu- 
facturing of  candy.  There  are  three  processes  of  dipping.  The 
"  hand  dipper"  tosses  the  molded  fondant  into  a  kettle  of  melted 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  CHILDREN  551 

chocolate,  twisting  it  about  with  her  hand  until  it  is  completely 
covered.  Then  she  places  it  on  oiled  paper  at  her  side  and  with 
a  quick  movement  she  finishes  it  off  on  top  with  an  extra  twirl 
of  chocolate.  This  requires  some  deftness  and  skill,  though  it  is 
necessarily  low-grade  work. 

"  Fork  dipping  "  is  used  in  the  dipping  of  bonbons  and  is  very 
much  the  same  as  hand  dipping  except  that  the  fondant  is  held 
on  a  two-pronged  fork.  "  Machine  dipping,"  used  only  in  the 
making  of  cheaper  grades  of  candies,  is  done  by  men. 

The  fancy  packing  requires  a  little  skill,  and  the  girl  must  exer- 
cise some  taste  in  arranging  the  candy  in  layers  and  finishing  the 
top  layer  to  look  attractive. 

Wages.  Much  of  the  work  is  paid  on  a  piece  basis  as  well  as 
a  time  basis.  The  beginners,  who  usually  do  the  less-skilled  pack- 
ing, receive  from  $2.50  to  $6. 

The  fancy  packers,  who  are  generally  paid  on  a  piece  basis, 
earn  as  high  as  $10  or  $12  in  some  factories  during  the  busy 
season.  The  usual  wage  is  from  $6  to  $8.  Chocolate  and  bonbon 
dippers  earn  from  $8  to  $10  in  some  factories  and  as  high  as  $12  in 
others.  In  the  busy  season  just  before  Christmas,  expert  dippers  have 
been  known  to  earn  from  $  1 8  to  $2  5  in  some  factories.  This  means, 
however,  that  the  girls  have  to  work  at  a  higher  rate  of  speed. 

Seasons.  The  busy  season  in  the  candy  industry  is  from  Sep- 
tember until  Christmas.  There  is  a  dull  season  from  January  until 
shortly  before  Easter,  when  the  work  picks  up  again.  The  summer 
months  are  slack. 

Hours.  Though  the  hours  vary  a  little  in  different  candy  fac- 
tories, they  are,  for  the  most  part,  from  7.30  to  4.30  or  5.30, 
with  one-half  hour  for  lunch. 

Conditions.  The  work  does  not  offer  much  opportunity  for  the 
bright  or  ambitious  girl,  for  it  is  uninteresting  as  well  as  unskilled. 
The  only  requirements  are  speed  and  dexterity.  In  some  factories, 
moreover,  low-grade  girls  are  employed  and  the  general  conditions 
are  poor.  There  are,  however,  factories  that  offer  pleasant  and 
sanitary  surroundings,  and  work  is  at  least  not  harmful.  The 
packing  is  light  and  clean  work,  and  the  dipping,  while  not  clean, 
is  by  no  means  difficult. 


552  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

READY-MADE  CLOTHING 

The  manufacturing  of  ready-made  clothing  in  Chicago  is  a  large 
and  growing  industry  and  is  the  largest  field  for  child  labor  in 
Chicago.  It  includes  the  manufacturing  of  women's  coats  and 
skirts,  men's  ready-made  suits,  house  dresses,  kimonos,  aprons, 
neckwear,  gloves,  children's  clothes,  overalls,  men's  shirts,  petti- 
coats, corsets,  ladies'  underwear,  nightdresses,  knit  goods,  laces, 
embroideries,  garters,  and  suspenders.  In  the  factories  where 
lingerie,  women's  waists  and  dresses,  and  lighter  clothing  are  made, 
however,  very  few  girls  under  sixteen  are  employed.  Those  who 
do  find  work  in  these  factories  clip  threads,  sew  on  buttons,  cut 
the  goods  under  the  lace,  prepare  the  trimming  for  the  operator, 
inspect  the  finished  garments,  and  do  light  packing.  If  the  girls 
remain  until  they  are  sixteen,  they  are  taught  to  operate  the  power 
machine.  The  majority  of  shops,  however,  prefer  to  employ  ex- 
perienced machine  operators.  The  conditions  in  these  shops  are 
generally  better  than  in  tailor  shops ;  the  work  is  lighter  and 
offers  better  opportunities. 

Processes.  The  greater  number  of  children  under  sixteen  are 
found  in  the  shops  where  men's  clothing  is  made.  The  work 
which  these  children  do  is  unskilled  and  offers  little  if  any  oppor- 
tunity to  learn  the  trade.  A  few  do  finishing,  that  is,  all  the  hand- 
work on  a  garment.  The  majority,  however,  do  not  do  any  form 
of  needlework  but  are  employed  as  sorters,  errand  boys  and  girls, 
bottom  trimmers,  basting  pullers,  label  and  ticket  sewers,  check 
girls,  and  strap  and  belt  trimmers.  Girls  often  brush  clothes,  which 
requires  standing  all  day.  The  largest  number  of  children  employed 
in  any  one  occupation  pull  bastings.  Boys'  work  is  generally  con- 
fined to  errand  work  and  to  nonsewing  occupations,  such  as  pulling 
bastings.  Since  all  this  work  is  merely  incidental  to  the  manufac- 
turer, he  is  not  interested  in  training  the  children  for  any  of  the 
more  skilled  processes  or  in  keeping  them  until  they  are  old 
enough  to  work  on  power  machines. 

Girls  at  sixteen  years  are  occasionally  advanced  to  the  power- 
machine  work,  which  requires  accuracy  and  a  degree  of  intelli- 
gence, and  which  pays  a  fairly  high  wage.  Generally,  however, 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  CHILDREN  553 

they  become  "finishers."  The  boys  over  sixteen  may  be  advanced 
to  power-machine  work.  They  may  become  edge  basters  or  pressers. 
Pressing  requires  considerable  physical  strength.  The  machine 
operating  is  the  most  skilled  branch  of  the  trade  for  both  men 
and  women. 

Hours,  seasons,  wages.  The  hours  and  seasons  vary  in  differ- 
ent establishments  according  to  the  nature  of  the  work.  In  some 
shops,  where  the  "  special-order  "  trade  is  carried  on,  there  is  a 
good  deal  of  rush  work  involving  long  hours  for  a  time,  followed 
by  shorter  hours  and  a  period  of  unemployment.  The  busy  sea- 
son of  the  "ready-made"  trade  comes  when  the  "special-order" 
work  is  slack. 

The  slack  seasons  generally  extend  over  a  period  from  four  to 
six  months.  In  a  number  of  establishments  the  employees  are  not 
laid  off  during  this  time,  but  they  are  often  forced  to  seek  other 
employment,  since  there  is  seldom  enough  work  to  keep  them 
busy  a  full  week. 

The  hours  during  the  rush  seasons  are  generally  nine  and  one 
half  a  day.  During  the  slack  season  the  hours  vary. 

The 'children  under  sixteen  generally  earn  from  $2  to  $5  a 
week,  though  many  earn  less  than  $2  a  week.  The  majority  do 
not  earn  more  than  $4  a  week.  Nearly  all  the  workers  in  tailor 
shops  are  paid  on  a  piece  basis,  and  the  wages  vary  according  to 
the  nature  of  the  work.  The  handworkers  may  earn  from  $8  to 
$12  during  the  busy  season,  and  in  exceptional  cases,  as  high  as 
$16.  Machine  operators,  after  a  few  months'  experience,  earn  $12 
or  $13  if  they  are  very  skillful,  and  occasionally  as  high  as  $20  a 
week.  In  some  instances  men  operators  earn  as  high  as  $25  and 
$30.  In  all  branches  of  the  trade  the  wages  drop  considerably 
during  the  slack  season. 

The  unskilled  and  monotonous  nature  of  the  work  for  the  child 
under  sixteen,  the  constant  standing  in  some  processes  and  the 
constant  sitting  and  bending  over  the  work  in  others,  the  confine- 
ment in  close  rooms,  the  eyestrain,  the  speeding,  the  often  low 
wage,  and  the  fact  that  it  is  possible  to  have  garment  shops  in 
tenements  where  the  conditions  are  unsanitary  are  disadvantages 
in  the  trade  which  make  it  especially  bad  for  children  who  enter  it. 


554  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

ERRAND  AND  MESSENGER  WORK 

The  majority  of  boys  under  sixteen  years  of  age  are  employed 
as  errand  boys  in  various  offices,  shops,  and  factories,  such  as 
printing,  engraving,  electrical,  and  machine  shops ;  tailoring, 
dressmaking,  and  millinery  establishments ;  drug  stores,  confec- 
tionery stores,  and  florist  shops.  In  nearly  every  factory  from  one 
to  several  boys  are  employed  to  run  errands.  Aside  from  this  a 
large  number  of  boys  are  employed  as  telegraph  messengers. 

In  very  few  instances  does  the  errand  boy  work  into  a  position 
offering  permanency  and  advancement.  Generally  the  employer 
has  no  intention  of  keeping  him  after  he  has  passed  beyond  the 
errand-boy  age  and  is  unwilling  to  accept  the  low  wage  offered 
for  this  work.  Many  establishments,  such  as  printing  and  engraving 
shops,  employ  more  errand  boys  than  they  can  possibly  apprentice 
to  the  trades  at  sixteen,  and  it  is  only  the  occasional  boy  who  has 
the  perseverance  to  "  stick  "  until  he  is  advanced  to  the  shop  work. 

In  electrical  and  machine  shops  the  errand  work  is  often  too 
heavy  for  a  younger  boy,  and  only  a  few  under  sixteen  are  em- 
ployed. Here  too  there  is  little  chance  to  learn  a  trade.  In  one 
large  shop  in  the  city  a  few  boys  under  sixteen  are  employed  to 
run  errands  within  the  plant,  where  they  have  a  chance  to  learn 
a  little  by  observation.  The  boys  sign  a  contract  that  they  will 
stay  with  the  firm  until  they  are  sixteen,  when  they  may  enter  the 
shop  or  the  office.  Here  there  is  a  definite  arrangement  between 
the  employer  and  the  boy  and  his  parents  that  the  boy  will  have 
an  opportunity  to  learn  a  skilled  trade.  This  is  the  only  shop  that 
offers  this  opportunity  to  boys  under  sixteen. 

If  the  trades  offer  but  little  hope  for  advancement  to  boys  who 
begin  as  errand  boys,  other  lines  of  work  offer  still  less.  In  some 
establishments  there  is  absolutely  nothing  for  the  boy  to  do  when 
he  is  too  old  for  errand  work.  For  instance,  dressmaking,  milli- 
nery, florists,  confectionery,  and  tailor  shops  seldom  have  anything 
to  offer  the  boy  at  sixteen.  In  wholesale  millinery  houses  the  errand 
boy  occasionally  advances  to  stock  boy,  but  only  in  rare  instances. 
There  is  scarcely  a  drug  store  that  does  not  employ  one  or  two 
boys,  but  few  of  them  are  apprenticed  at  sixteen. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  CHILDREN  555 

That  errand  work  affords  no  practical  training  is  not  its  chief 
detriment.  It  is  deteriorating  and  makes  the  boy  unfit  for  any 
steady  employment.  The  life  on  the  streets  encourages  idleness 
and  loafing.  As  a  result  a  great  majority  of  errand  boys  begin  a 
process  of  aimless  drifting  from  one  job  to  another.  By  the  time 
they  are  sixteen,  or  shortly  after,  many  of  them  have  become  casual 
laborers.  Employers  in  the  better  and  more  skilled  lines  of  work 
prefer  boys  who  have  never  worked  to  boys  who  have  run  errands 
for  a  year  or  two  and  thus  have  formed  unsteady  habits. 

Aside  from  its  unwholesome  influence  on  a  boy's  mental  and 
moral  development,  errand  work  is  often  bad  for  him  physically. 
Sometimes  he  is  required  to  push  or  carry  heavy  weights  far  in 
excess  of  his  strength.  While  it  may  seem  that  the  errand  boy  is 
engaged  in  a  healthy,  outdoor  occupation,  he  is  exposed  to  wet 
and  cold  weather,  often  with  insufficient  clothing. 

Though  boys  under  sixteen  are  allowed  by  law  to  work  only 
eight  hours  a  day,  the  errand  boy  often  has  to  work  overtime. 
Frequently  employers  send  them  out  just  before  closing  time  on 
errands  which  require  them  to  go  long  distances,  so  that  they 
reach  home  at  a  late  hour. 

The  wages  which  errand  boys  receive  are  as  low  as  $3  in  some 
instances  and  as  high  as  $6  in  others,  though  in  a  majority  of  cases 
they  rarely  exceed  $5.  The  higher  wage  often  means  that  the  em- 
ployer has  no  inducement  to  offer  the  boy  besides  the  wage  itself. 

The  telegraph  messenger  has  the  least  chance  for  advancement 
of  all  the  boys  engaged  in  errand  work.  He  seldom  has  any  pros- 
pect with  the  telegraph  company  itself.  One  company  in  the  city 
offers  to  send  the  messenger  boys  in  its  employ  to  the  school  of 
telegraphy  one  hour  a  day.  Out  of  337  boys  employed,  however, 
only  25  attend  the  school,  since  they  are  not  paid  for  the  time 
spent  in  training.  Except  for  this  one  opportunity,  there  is  ab- 
solutely no  chance  for  the  messenger  boy  to  learn  anything.  Since 
much  time  is  spent  in  loafing  between  messages,  the  moral  effect 
upon  the  boy  is  not  good.  Some  employers  are  unwilling  to  en- 
gage boys  who  have  been  in  the  messenger  service,  because  they 
idle  away  their  time  and  many  of  them  have  fallen  into  bad  com- 
pany as  the  results  of  being  on  the  streets. 


556  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Messenger  boys  are  paid  on  a  commission  basis,  receiving  one 
and  one-half  cents  for  each  message  delivered.  The  boy  who  is 
quick  can  earn  about  $5  a  week.  The  majority  earn  between  $4 
and  $5.  Each  boy  has  a  certain  amount  deducted  from  his  wages 
each  week  to  pay  for  his  uniform. 

Altogether  a  boy  cannot  be  urged  too  strongly  to  keep  out  of 
errand  work.  Though  the  wages  offered  may  in  many  cases  seem 
high  to  the  fourteen-year-old  boy,  the  years  between  fourteen  and 
sixteen,  if  spent  in  school,  will  do  much  more  toward  increasing 
his  future  capacity  than  any  of  the  aimless  work  which  is  open  to 
him  at  fourteen.  To  both  boys  and  girls  the  schools  offer  many 
practical  advantages  which  will  help  to  fit  them  for  the  more  skilled 
and  higher-paid  branches  of  work. 


TELEPHONE  OPERATING 

(Issued  by  the  Girls'  Trade  Education  League,  Boston,  Massachusetts) 
NATURE  OF  THE  WORK 

In  telephone  operating,  two  or  more  lines  in  a  network  of  in- 
numerable wires  are  brought  into  connection  with  each  other.  This 
connection  is  made  by  girls  in  operating  rooms  of  central  offices, 
or  "  exchanges,"  where  by  their  skillful  management  of  a  piece  of 
apparatus  called  a  switchboard  they  enable  people  at  a  distance 
apart  to  talk  with  each  other.  Exchanges  are  both  public  and  pri- 
vate, the  public  exchanges  being  those  of  the  telephone  company, 
while  the  others  are  really  branch  exchanges  of  the  same  system, 
installed  in  such  places  as  hotels  and  large  mercantile  establish- 
ments in  order  to  create  a  quicker  and  more  efficient  mode  of 
communication  for  those  within. 

In  order  to  understand  the  work  of  a  telephone  operator  as 
clearly  as  possible  in  its  simpler  elements,  let  us  imagine  ourselves 
entering  one  of  the  metropolitan  exchanges.  We  find  ourselves  in 
a  large  room  where  our  first  impression  is  the  low  hum  of  numer- 
ous voices,  then,  in  a  large  horseshoe  curve  around  three  sides  of 
the  room,  the  row  of  one  hundred  or  more  girls,  seated  on  high 
revolving  chairs,  back  to  the  center.  Almost  at  the  same  time  we 
notice  the  continuous  stretch  of  switchboard  which  they  face  and 
at  which  they  are  closely  engaged.  Each  girl  has  over  her  head 
light  steel  bands,  worn  like  a  fillet.  These  bands  hold  a  receiver 
to  her  ear,  while  suspended  from  her  neck  is  a  light,  horn-shaped 
transmitter,  into  which  she  talks. 

Examination  of  the  switchboard  shows  that  it  consists  of  two 
planes.  The  one  more  noticeable  on  entering  the  exchange  is  up- 
right, extending  above  the  heads  of  the  operators.  The  other  is 
horizontal,  joining  the  former  at  right  angles.  It  is  about  a  foot 
wide  and  extends  in  front  of  the  girls  like  a  narrow  table. 

557 


558  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  upright  portion  of  the  switchboard  is  divided  into  vertical 
sections  about  six  feet  wide,  and  each  section  is  divided  again  into 
panels.  In  the  lowest  panel  is  a  series  of  round  holes,  or  "  jacks," 
and  directly  over  each  jack  is  a  miniature  electric  lamp,  glass  cov- 
ered. It  is  in  this  panel  that  the  group  of  subscribers'  lines  for 
which  the  individual  operator  is  responsible  terminates.  In  the 
uppermost  panel  there  are  no  lamps,  but  a  myriad  of  jacks  in 
numerical  order,  one  for  every  line  in  the  exchange.  Beside  each 
jack  are  tiny  figures,  indicating  the  line  numbers.  The  equipment 
in  this  panel  is  called  a  ''multiple,"  because  it  is  repeated  in  every 
section  of  the  switchboard.  On  a  middle  panel,  where  there  are 
more  jacks,  'the  "  trunk  lines  "  of  other  exchanges  terminate. 

On  the  tablelike  portion  of  the  switchboard,  in  order  from  back 
to  front  and  extending  lengthwise  of  the  table,  are  (i)  two  rows 
of  metal  plugs,  opposite  in  pairs ;  (2)  two  rows  of  small  lamps  of 
the  same  number  and  arrangement  as  the  plugs  and  associated 
with  them  ;  (3)  a  row  of  levers,  or  ringing  keys,  each  one  of  which 
corresponds  in  position  to  a  pair  of  lamps  and  plugs.  At  the  left 
of  these  is  a  group  of  fifty  or  more  push  buttons,  each  bearing  the 
name  of  an  exchange. 

Such  is  the  apparatus  with  which  the  telephone  operator  works. 
Each  section  of  the  switchboard  is  divided  into  three  operators' 
"  positions."  While  one  girl  is  primarily  responsible  for  a  single 
position,  yet  she  is  required  to  do  "teamwork"  with  the  girls  on 
either  side  of  her,  particularly  when  they  are  busier  than  she  is. 
When  a  subscriber  takes  his  receiver  off  the  hook  to  call  "central," 
one  of  the  tiny  lamps  on  the  low  panel  of  the  upright  part  of  the 
switchboard  glows  to  indicate  the  fact  that  he  is  calling.  The 
operator  picks  up  a  cord  and  inserts  one  plug  in  the  jack  over 
which  the  light  is  burning ;  at  the  same  time  she  throws  forward 
the  corresponding  lever.  This  puts  her  in  communication  with  the 
subscriber,  and  the  signal  light  goes  out.  She  makes  the  familiar 
inquiry,  "  Number  ?  "  and  repeats  it  when  given.  If  the  number 
called  for  is  in  her  own  exchange,  she  takes  the  second  of  the  pair 
of  plugs  in  use  and,  on  the  "  multiple  "  above,  plugs  into  the  jack 
beside  which  is  printed  in  small  figures  the  number  that  has  been 
called.  At  the  same  time  she  presses  the  proper  lever.  By  so 


TELEPHONE  OPERATING  559 

doing  she  rings  the  person  desired,  and  one  of  the  two  lamps  on 
the  table,  opposite  the  cords  in  use,  glows.  If  there  is  a  response 
to  the  ring  the  light  goes  out,  and  as  either  of  the  subscribers 
hangs  up  his  receiver  at  the  end  of  the  conversation  one  of  the 
lamps  glows  again.  When  both  are  burning  it  is  a  signal  for  the 
operator  to  take  down  the  cords,  or  "  disconnect." 

At  a  busy  time,  while  an  operator  is  making  one  connection, 
lights  on  the  upright  section  flash  before  her  in  succession,  signal- 
ing that  there  are  other  subscribers  desiring  her  attention.  She 
must  observe  these  and,  so  far  as  possible,  take  each  in  order  as 
soon  as  the  previous  connection  is  completed.  At  the  same  time 
she  must  watch  every  connection  already  made,  to  see  that  there 
are  no  "  cut-offs  "  and  to  be  ready  to  disconnect  so  soon  as  the 
conversation  is  finished. 

If  the  number  called  for  is  in  another  exchange,  in  addition  to 
signals  and  movements  like  those  already  described,  the  process 
of  making  connection  involves  the  use  of  one  of  the  push  buttons 
at  the  operator's  left,  by  which  she  communicates  with  an  operator 
in  the  exchange  called  for,  through  whose  assistance  a  desired 
connection  is  made. 

THE  GIRL:    QUALIFICATIONS  REQUIRED 

From  the  nature  of  the  work  and  from  the  fact  that  the  satis- 
faction of  an  exacting  public  depends  directly  upon  the  type  of 
girl  who  serves,  it  is  obvious  that  telephone  operating  calls  for  a 
superior  force  of  workers. 

To  gain  entrance  to  the  work,  a  girl  must  be  between  seventeen 
and  twenty-five  years  of  age.  She  must  be  possessed  of  good  health 
and  normal  hearing,  she  should  have  a  voice  which  is  ordinarily 
clear,  and  she  must  have  good  eyesight.  Perfect  connections  on 
the  switchboard  depend  upon  the  constantly  accurate  vision  of  the 
operator ;  a  girl  who  is  obliged  to  wear  glasses  for  a  defect  of 
vision,  therefore,  will  not  be  accepted  unless  the  glasses  correct 
the  defect.  Again,  in  working  at  the  switchboard,  if  her  sitting 
height  and  arm  reach  are  below  normal,  she  is  handicapped  on 
account  of  a  required  average  reach.  She  should  be  able  to  write 
a  legible  hand  in  order  to  make  satisfactory  records  of  telephone 


560  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

calls.  An  applicant  should  be  one  who  is  careful  of  her  personal 
appearance.  Girls  are  barred  from  the  work  if  they  are  noticeably 
lacking  in  neatness  and  refinement  of  person. 

Not  only  do  the  regular  calls  demand  mental  alertness  and  self- 
restraint,  but  these  are  sometimes  varied  by  emergency  calls.  A 
girl  must  be  ready  to  respond  to  hurried  appeals  for  doctor,  hos- 
pital, fire  department,  or  police ;  and  on  her  thorough  knowledge, 
cool  judgment,  and  quick  wit  oftentimes  depends  speedy  aid  or 
rescue  in  cases  of  suffering  and  danger. 

Both  training  and  experienced  practice  afterwards  mean  pains- 
taking and  exacting  work  and  require  above  all  else  concentration, 
quickness  of  thought  and  movement,  accuracy,  patience,  and  self- 
control.  In  this  there  is  a  real  demand  on  a  girl's  nerve  energy, 
and  she  must  possess  health  and  endurance  and  an  even  disposition 
to  meet  it. 

Because  a  would-be  telephone  operator  must  be  intelligent,  alert, 
and  dependable,  the  more  education  she  has  had  to  bring  out  these 
qualifications  the  better  chance  she  has  of  being  accepted  for  the 
work.  In  1912  there  were  but  13  per  cent  of  all  the  girls  taken 
into  the  service  who  had  not  received  some  high-school  training, 
and  these  were  able  to  offer  special  qualifications,  such  as  natural 
ability  above  the  average,  development  through  previous  employ- 
ment, through  intelligent  reading,  or  through  attending  evening 
classes.  Of  the  87  per  cent  who  had  had  some  high-school  training, 
1 1  per  cent  were  graduates. 

It  may  be  helpful  to  vocational  counselors  to  know  the  system 
by  which  applicants  for  entrance  to  the  telephone  school  where 
girls  are  trained  for  the  work  are  graded  by  the  principal,  who 
interviews  them. 

Candidates  are  classed  A,  B,  C,  and  "  Rejected."  The  A  group 
represents  perfect  physique,  marked  intelligence,  graduation  from 
high  school,  or  commercial  or  college  education,  along  with  good 
personal  appearance. 

The  B  group  represents  the  average  girl  who,  although  possibly 
deficient  in  one  or  more  points,  has  other  favorable  qualifications 
which,  with  the  opportunity  for  training  afforded  by  the  school, 
secure  her  entrance  to  the  work  without  serious  difficulty. 


TELEPHONE  OPERATING  561 

The  C  group  includes  those  who  have  not  had  high-school  edu- 
cation and  those  who,  although  having  attended  high  school,  in 
making  out  their  application  blanks  and  in  personal  interview  do 
not  appear  to  measure  up  to  standards  expected  of  high-school 
candidates.  This  group  sometimes  includes  also  those  who  offer 
satisfactory  qualifications  in  point  of  education  but  are  deficient 
on  the  point  of  personal  appearance.  Girls  are  never  drawn  from 
the  C  group  so  long  as  A  or  B  girls  are  available. 

Those  rejected  (from  44  to  45  per  cent)  are  not  considered 
beyond  the  first  interview,  because  they  are  obviously  lacking  in 
most  of  the  requirements. 

Of  all  who  are  admitted  to  the  school  about  25  per  cent  are 
dropped  afterwards  because  of  deficiencies,  especially  in  application 
and  grasp  of  thought  as  students,  in  accuracy  and  concentration 
in  practice  work,  and  ability  to  master  the  mechanics  of  the 
switchboard. 

TRAINING  REQUIRED 

Any  girl  who  wishes  to  enter  one  of  the  central  offices  of  the 
telephone  company  in  greater  Boston  must  attend  the  telephone 
school.  The  length  of  apprenticeship  is  from  one  to  two  months, 
the  first  month  being  spent  in  the  school  and  the  remainder  of  the 
time  in  an  exchange.  In  her  school  course  the  student  is  taught 
the  manual  operation  of  a  switchboard  and  instructed,  by  means  of 
lectures  illustrated  by  charts  and  various  parts  of  apparatus,  in  the 
general  duties  she  will  be  called  upon  to  perform  and  in  the  rules 
and  etiquette  which  must  be  observed.  Her  speaking  voice  is 
trained,  particularly  in  enunciating,  and  her  power  of  concentra- 
tion is  developed.  Throughout  the  course  the  student  is  tested 
carefully  in  the  lectures  and  classroom  as  to  her  ability  to  be- 
come a  successful  operator,  especially  on  the  point  of  quickness 
of  perception. 

The  school  operating  room  in  appearance  and  equipment  is  like 
an  actual  exchange.  No  girl  deals  with  subscribers,  that  is,  the 
telephone-using  public,  but  with  teachers  who  sit  at  desks  in  the 
center  of  the  room  and  who  pass  the  students  typical  calls  and  so 
produce,  by  manipulation  of  the  apparatus,  the  same  conditions  on 


562  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

the  switchboard  as  those  which  the  girls  would  meet  in  dealing 
with  the  public. 

At  the  end  of  the  school  period  the  student  is  assigned  to  an 
exchange,  where  she  has  from  two  to  four  weeks  of  further  train- 
ing, this  being  actual  practice  work  with  subscribers  under  special 
supervision  before  she  becomes  a  regular  operator. 


POSITIONS  AND  PAY;  OPPORTUNITIES  FOR  ADVANCEMENT 

During  the  student  period  a  girl  is  paid  $5  a  week.  At  the  end 
of  this  time  she  is  placed  in  an  exchange,  and  her  pay  remains  the 
same  during  a  continued  period  of  apprenticeship  which  is  never 
longer  than  four  weeks  after  leaving  the  telephone  school.  She  is 
then  assigned  to  a  regular  operator's  position,  where  she  receives 
$6  a  week.  At  the  end  of  a  year  from  the  date  of  entrance  to  the 
school,  through  increases  at  regular  intervals,  the  $6  wage  is  raised 
to  $8,  and  at  the  end  of  one  and  a  half  years  to  $9.  At  the  end 
of  two  and  a  half  years  the  wage  received  is  $10,  at  the  end  of 
four  years  $  1 1  ;  at  the  end  of  six  years  the  maximum  for  general 
operators,  $12,  is  reached.  These  rates  of  pay  apply  only  to  opera- 
tors on  day  positions.  Those  on  evening  work  receive  one  dollar 
more,  and  those  on  night  work  two  dollars  more,  per  week  than 
day  operators  of  corresponding  rank. 

Possibility  for  advancement  to  positions  above  that  of  operator 
depends  again  upon  the  ability  of  the  individual  and  upon  the 
character  of  her  work  as  estimated  by  her  superiors.  Above  the 
position  of  operator  are  those  of : 

Senior  operator.  Promotion  to  this  position  is  secured  not  by 
seniority  in  length  of  service  but  by  manifest  ability.  Senior 
operators  are-  not  only  the  most  expert  operators  but  also  the 
ones  who  are  being  tried  out  for  greater  responsibilities  later. 
They  are  usually  considered  as  standing  in  direct  line  for  the 
position  of  supervisor.  The  salary  paid  is  slightly  higher  than  that 
of  operators. 

Supervisor.  The  name  indicates  the  chief  duty  of  a  girl  in  this 
position,  that  is,  supervising  the  work  of  the  operators,  although 
she  is  essentially  an  instructor.  The  supervisor  also  gives  them 


TELEPHONE  OPERATING  563 

her  aid  if  there  is  any  special  difficulty  in  operating.  The  salary 
paid  is  from  $12  to  $15. 

Chief  operator.  A  person  in  this  position  has  entire  charge  of 
the  operating  room  and  is  responsible  for  the  character  of  the 
service  rendered  by  her  working  force  and  for  the  arrangement 
of  hours  and  assignment  of  wages.  The  salaries  of  chief  operators 
vary,  according  to  the  size  of  the  exchange,  from  $15  to  $2$.1 

With  the  exception  of  chief  operators,  all  girls  of  the  operating 
force  employed  on  evening  work  receive  one  dollar  more,  and  on 
night  work  two  dollars  more,  per  week  than  those  on  day  work. 

A  girl's  retention  in  the  service  and  promotion  to  the  higher 
positions  are  dependent  upon  the  number  of  calls  she  can  handle 
and  the  quality  of  service  she  gives,  her  regularity  and  punctuality 
in  attendance,  and  her  willingness  to  serve,  as  well  as  her  disposi- 
tion as  shown  in  her  relations  with  her  fellow  employees,  her 
superiors,  and  the  public. 

Besides  the  positions  given  in  order  of  promotion  there  are 
positions  on  toll  or  long-distance  operating  and  at  the  information 
desk.  Subscribers  are  referred  to  the  latter  when  desiring  special 
information.  The  work  in  these  positions  varies  considerably  from 
that  in  regular  operating,  but  the  pay  is  the  same.  There  are  pos- 
sibilities for  experienced  telephone  operators  in  private  branch 
exchanges.  In  such  exchanges  large  business  houses  find  it  advan- 
tageous to  employ  their  own  operators.  Here  a  girl's  experience 
may  lead  to  a  broader  field  of  work,  for  it  is  necessary  that  she 
should  know  not  only  the  routine  of  operating  but  also  in  a 
general  way  the  business  of  the  concern.  In  such  positions  the 
wages  vary  according  to  the  responsibility  required. 

CONDITIONS   OF  THE  WORK 

Hours.  To  meet  the  public  demand,  telephone  service  must  be 
given  at  every  moment  of  every  day,  including  Sundays  and  holi- 
days, not  only  during  the  morning  and  afternoon  but  during  the 
evening  and  the  night.  Moreover  there  is  a  very  great  variation 
in  the  number  of  calls  at  different  times  of  the  day ;  for  example, 

l  Wages  as  given,  effective  June  i,  1913. 


564  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

in  a  central  office  located  in  the  heart  of  the  business  district  the 
number  of  calls  may  be  exceedingly  great  from  ten  to  eleven  in 
the  morning  and  from  three  to  four  in  the  afternoon,  falling  and 
rising  between  these  busiest  hours,  decreasing  markedly  during  the 
evening,  dropping  to  a  low  minimum  during  the  night,  and  then 
beginning  to  increase  again  in  the  early  business  hours  in  the 
morning. 

Therefore  different  groups  of  girls  come  on  at  various  hours 
of  the  day.  To  illustrate,  some  may  come  on  at  7,  some  at  7.45, 
others  at  8.30,  9.15,  and  9.45  A.M.,  and  still  others  at  12.30,  2.30, 
6.30,  and  10  P.M.,  but  all  may  be  classed  in  three  general  groups  : 
(i)  those  on  day  service,  whose  hours  of  work,  eight  in  number, 
are  consecutive  and  end  not  later  than  7  P.M.  ;  (2)  those  on  eve- 
ning service,  whose  hours,  but  seven  in  number,  are  in  some  cases 
consecutive,  in  others  not — that  is,  the  working  day  for  some  girls 
is  divided  with  a  gap  of  five  hours  between  a  number  of  hours  in 
the  forenoon  and  a  number  in  the  late  afternoon  and  evening, 
for  others  it  is  continuous,  beginning  in  the  afternoon  and  ending 
in  the  evening ;  (3)  those  on  night  service,  whose  hours  begin  at 
10  P.M.  and  end  at  7  A.M. 

In  connection  with  these  hours  several  facts  should  be  noted  : 

1.  It  is  not  found  necessary  to  require  night  work  of  any  girl, 
as  the  number  willing  to  take  it  is  sufficient  to  meet  it.    This  is 
due  chiefly  to  the  lightness  of  the  work,  the  higher  pay,  the  small 
number  of  girls  required,  and,  in  some  instances,  to  special  home 
conditions  which  make  it  desirable  to  the  individual  girl.    It  is  the 
policy  of  the  company  to  place  on  the  night  work  no  girl  under' 
twenty-one  years  of  age. 

2.  Evening  work  is  given  to  beginners  who  enter  the  telephone 
school  with  the  understanding  that  they  are  liable  to  be  given 
evening  hours  at  first.    A  girl  so  placed  is  transferred  to  more 
desirable  hours  as  opportunity  occurs,  until  she  finally  receives 
straight  day  work  if  she  prefers  it. 

3.  A  girl  on  evening  work  serves  a  smaller  number  of  hours, 
and  on  either  evening  or  night  work  she  receives  the  extra  pay 
already  stated.    If  she  serves  on  "divided  hour"  work  and  goes 
home  between  her  two  work  periods,  she  is  allowed  car  fare. 


TELEPHONE  OPERATING  565 

4.  Great  care  is  taken  for  the  protection  of  girls  while  on 
evening  and  night  duty,  and  on  the  night  work  the  number  is 
always  more  than  one  in  an  exchange. 

5.  The  frequency  with  which  a  girl  must  work  on  Sundays  and 
holidays  varies  in  the  different  exchanges  according  to  the  differ- 
ence in  decrease  of  calls  on  these  days.  As  a  rule,  therefore,  a  girl 
in  an  exchange  located  in  a  residential  district  has  to  serve  oftener 
at  such  times.    Whenever  a  girl  is  called  upon  for  work  on  these 
days,  however,  she  is  paid  at  the  rate  of  time  and  one  half,  and  if 
she  is  employed  Sunday  she  has  a  day  off  during  the  same  week. 

6.  Girls  on  both  day  and  evening  duty  are  given  two  relief 
periods  of  fifteen  minutes  each  and  a  lunch  hour  of  forty-five 
minutes  or  an  hour.    Those  on  night  duty  are  given  an  hour  for 
lunch  and  rest. 

Steadiness  of  employment.  Although  the  work  fluctuates  at 
different  times  of  the  year,  no  girls  are  laid  off. 

Vacations.  During  slack  periods  vacations  are  given,  two  weeks 
in  length,  with  pay,  each  girl  receiving  one  such  vacation  each  year. 

Physical  conditions.  The  physical  conditions  under  which  a 
telephone  operator  works  are  of  the  best.  In  every  exchange,  pro- 
vided by  the  telephone  company,  are  rest  rooms  worthy  of  the 
name  in  the  comfort  which  they  afford  and  in  the  taste  with  which 
they  are  furnished.  Here  the  girls  have  opportunity  for  rest,  socia- 
bility, and  reading,  in  their  relief  and  lunch  periods.  Individual 
lockers,  excellent  toilet  rooms,  and  hospital  rooms  add  to  the  girls' 
health  and  comfort.  A  matron  is  in  charge,  whose  duty  is  to  care 
for  the  girls'  welfare.  In  the  larger  exchanges  there  are  well- 
equipped  and  attractive  lunch  rooms,  where  lunch  is  served  at  cost. 
A  woman  physician,  serving  permanently,  examines  the  girls  as 
to  their  physical  qualifications  on  entrance  to  the  telephone  school 
and  is  constantly  studying  the  working  conditions  from  the  human 
side.  After  the  girls  are  placed  in  an  exchange  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  chief  operator  to  watch  them  in  regard  to  health  and  to  refer 
them  to  the  physician  when  they  appear  to  need  her  care  or  advice. 

Benefit  fund.  A  liberal  plan  for  the  payment  of  sickness  bene- 
fits to  employees,  of  life  insurance  to  their  dependents  at  death, 
and  pensions  became  effective  January  I,  1913. 


566  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

SUGGESTIONS  FOR  THE  GIRL 

1.  A  girl  who  wishes  to  take  up  telephone  operating  and  who 
thinks  she  has  the  necessary  qualifications  should  apply  in  person 
at  the  telephone  school,  50  Oliver  Street,  from  2.30  to  3.30  P.M., 
except  on  Saturdays.    When  she  does  so  she  will  be  given  an 
application  blank,  on  which  she  will  be  asked  to  state  her  name 
and  address  and  the  names  of  her  parents  and  their  place  of  resi- 
dence ;  where  she  last  attended  school  and  the  grade  and  year  in 
which  she  left  it;  any  previous  places  of  work,  positions  held, 
length  of  time  in  each,   and  wages  received ;    and  the  names 
of  responsible  persons,  not  her  relatives,  which  shall  serve  as 
references. 

2.  If  she  is  under  seventeen  and  still  in  school  but  thinks  she 
would  like  to  take  up  telephone  operating  later,  she  should  con- 
tinue her  schooling  at  least  until  she  is  old  enough  to  enter  the 
telephone  school  and  until  graduation  from  high  school  if  possible. 
The  continued  education  will  be  of  direct  benefit  to  her  in  her 
work.    Then  again,  a  girl  who  seeks  telephone  operating  directly 
from  school  succeeds  as  a  rule  more  easily  than  one  who  has  been 
engaged  in  some  occupation  which  called  for  none  of  the  faculties 
demanded  in  telephone  operating,  even  though  previously  she  had 
attended  high  school. 

3.  The  girl  who  has  been  actually  obliged  to  leave  school  early 
to  go  to  work  but  who  has  real  ambition  to  become  a  telephone 
operator  should  supplement  her  schooling  by  evening  classes  and 
by  good  general  reading  done  under  competent  direction. 

SUMMARY  OF  THE  VOCATION 

Disadvantages.  I .  Most  of  the  girls  who  enter  telephone  oper- 
ating are  given,  for  a  time  at  least,  evening  hours  which  carry  the 
work  up  to  ten  and,  in  rare  instances,  to  eleven  o'clock  ;  and  some 
girls  go  home  at  these  hours  without  protection.  Others  work  dur- 
ing the  night  hours,  which  is  not,  of  course,  an  ideal  situation, 
although  the  ones  who  serve  are  older  girls,  taking  these  hours 
voluntarily,  and  being  well  protected  while  on  duty. 


TELEPHONE  OPERATING  567 

2.  Every  operator  must  take  her  turn  in  working  on  Sundays 
and  holidays.    As  already  stated,  this  is  much  more  frequent  for 
some  than  for  others. 

3.  There  is  a  considerable  degree  of  nerve  strain  in  the  work 
due  to  the  necessary  concentration  and  alertness  of  mind  and  cor- 
related action  of  eye,  ear,  and  hands ;  to  rigid  requirements  in 
respect  to  phraseology,  articulation,  courtesy  of  reply,  and  speed ; 
to  inconsiderateness  on  the  part  of  subscribers ;  due  also  to  the 
closeness  with  which  the  work  must  be  supervised.    Not  only  are 
the  operators  corrected  and  guided  by  the  supervisors,  who  are  by 
them  constantly  at  the  switchboard,  but  at  a  time  unknown  to  them, 
their  work  is  checked  up  also  by  an  observer,  who,  seated  at  a  desk, 
"listens  in"  to  different  operators  to  test  the  type  of  service  which 
they  are  rendering.    Service  tests  are  made  also  from  outside  the 
exchange.    These  observations  are  made  with  a  view  to  correcting 
weaknesses  in  the  service  and  giving  the  supervisors  an  oppor- 
tunity to  instruct  the  operators  how  to  work  most  efficiently.   Obvi- 
ously a  girl  of  a  decidedly  nervous,   sensitive  temperament   is 
unsuited  for  the  work. 

Advantages,  i.  To  the  right  type  of  girl  telephone  operating 
affords  self-development.  The  necessary  concentration  of  mind, 
quickness  of  perception,  accuracy,  and  self-control  contribute  towards 
a  responsible  womanliness.  Instead  of  being  monotonous,  girls 
declare  that  there  is  something  "interesting,"  "fascinating,"  about 
it,  and  their  enjoyment  in  the  work  seems  to  lie  particularly  in  the 
play  of  human  nature  over  the  wire,  never  exactly  the  same  any 
two  days  or  two  hours  of  the  day  —  a  continued  variation  in  tone 
of  voice,  speech,  and  places  called  for.  Then  again,  the  girl  of 
ability  and  ambition  finds  a  keen  interest  in  her  effort  to  prove  her- 
self equal  to  the  difficult  task  of  "  clearing  her  board  "  when  large 
numbers  of  calls  come  over  the  switchboard  rapidly  in  succession. 

In  special  positions,  such  as  "toll"  and  "information,"  opera- 
tors acquire  special  knowledge.  The  toll  operators,  for  example, 
learn  much  of  geography  and  acquire  mathematical  ability  in 
very  practical  fashion. 

2.  Girls  of  intelligence  and  more  than  grammar-school  educa- 
tion find  congenial  coworkers.  Their  physical  welfare  is  carefully 


568  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

regarded.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  also  that  there  is  no  other  occupa- 
tion in  which  young  girls  are  employed  where  their  moral  welfare  is 
so  safeguarded  by  their  environment  as  in  the  telephone  exchange. 

3.  The  wages  paid  compare  favorably  with  those  of  other  kinds 
of  work  employing  girls  of  the  same  age  and  schooling,  and 
from  the  first  there  is  opportunity  for  advancement  in  point  both 
of  wage  and  position. 

4.  Employment  is  absolutely  steady,  in  contrast  to  the  irregu- 
larity of  employment  found  in  nearly  if  not  every  other  kind  of 
work  that  girls  enter. 

BOARD  OF  HEALTH  AND  CENSUS  REPORTS 

There  are  no  statistics  from  either  source  which  are  of  value  for  the  present 
bulletin. 

STATISTICS  FOR  BOSTON  FROM  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  TELEPHONE  AND 
TELEGRAPH  COMPANY 

Within  the  limits  of  the  "  Metropolitan  District "  are  some  50  telephone 
central  offices,  serving  nearly  1 60,000  subscribers'  stations,  from  which  originate 
some  850,000  calls  per  day. 

To  handle  the  traffic  in  these  offices  a  force  of  over  2500  young  women  is 
employed.  Given  below  is  the  distribution  of  this  force  in  the  different  posi- 
tions. All  positions  except  those  designated  as  operators  are  positions  carrying 
higher  pay  than  the  maximum  salary  of  operators  and  to  which  positions  pro- 
motions are  made  from  the  operating  force,  selection  being  in  accordance  with 
ability  displayed. 

Nos.  TOTALS          PRKCENTAGES 

Operators 2100                 2100                83.2 

Senior  operators 94 

Supervisors 156 

Chief  clerks 12 

Chief  operators  and  assistants     ...  72 

School  principal  and  instructors       .     .  1 1 

Private  branch  exchange  supervisors   .  5 

Clerks  in  department  offices   ....  73                  423                 16.8 


In  addition  to  the  positions  in  the  employ  of  the  company,  there  are  some 
1 200  private  branch  exchange  operators  in  the  city.  Wherever  possible,  the 
telephone  company  endeavors  to  furnish  experienced  employees  to  operate  the 
private  branch  exchanges  in  such  places  as  hotels  and  business  offices,  as  it  is 


TELEPHONE  OPERATING  569 

obviously  to  the  advantage  of  both  subscribers  and  the  company  to  have  only 
experienced  employees  participating  in  such  an  important  part  of  the  telephone 
service.  The  work  of  these  operators  is  supervised  by  a  force  of  experienced 
young  women,  designated  in  the  above  list  as  private  branch  exchange  super- 
visors, who  constantly  travel  about  among  the  private  branch  exchanges, 
instructing  the  employees  as  to  proper  methods  and  inspecting  their  work. 


REFERENCES 

TAYLOR,  GRAHAM.    The  Telephone  Girl.    The  Survey,  Vol.  XXIV,  April  2, 

1910,  pp.  60-64. 
BAXTER,  SYLVESTER.    The  Telephone  Girl.    The  Outlook,  Vol.  LXXXIII, 

May  26,  1906,  pp.  231-239. 
HARRINGTON,  Miss  M.  E.,   Principal   Boston   School  for  Operators.     The 

Training  of  Operators  in  Boston.    Telephone  Topics,  Vol.  IV,  June,  1910, 

pp.  18-19. 
The  Selection  and  Development  of  a  Supervisor.    Telephone  Topics,  Vol.  IV, 

July,  1910,  pp.  16-17. 

A  paper  read  at  a  meeting  of  Boston  chief  operators  by  Miss  G.  M.  Taylor, 
Richmond  chief  operator. 

RICHARDSON,  ANNA  STEESE.   The  Girl  who  earns  her  Own  Living,  Chapter  X, 
"  Telephone  Operating."    New  York,  Dodge,  1909. 
Written  from  the  standpoint  of  New  York  conditions. 

"  Investigation  of  Telephone  Companies,"  United  States  Senate  Report,  1910, 
Document  No.  380. 

This  investigation  was  made  by  the  Bureau  of  Labor  in  response  to  a  Senate 
resolution  of  May  28,  1908,  calling  for  an  investigation  into  telephone  com- 
panies engaged  in  the  conduct  of  interstate  business.  The  report  is  a  valuable 
'contribution  to  a  clearer  understanding  of  conditions,  both  local  and  general, 
in  the  telephone  business.  In  Chapter  I,  pp.  9-113,  are  presented  such  sub- 
jects as  Housing  of  Exchanges  and  Equipment,  Training  Schools,  Appli- 
cation and  Entrance  Examinations,  Working  Shifts  or  Tricks  and  Hours 
of  Labor  for  Operators,  Description  of  Telephone  Work,  Length  of  Service 
of  Operators,  Supervision,  The  Public  and  the  Operator,  Wages,  Care  for  the 
Health  of  Operatives,  and  Welfare  Work. 

GOLDMARK,  JOSEPHINE.  Fatigue  and  Efficiency,  pp.  43-53,  "  The  Telephone 
Service."  New  York,  Charities  Publication  Committee,  Russell  Sage 
Foundation,  1912. 

The  Company  and  the  Employee.  Boston,  New  England  Telephone  and 
Telegraph  Company,  1913. 

A  small  booklet,  primarily  designed  for  the  perusal  of  employees,  and  stat- 
ing clearly  and  concisely  the  regulations  and  policy  of  the  company  in  their 


570  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

relations  with  the  former.  The  specific  information  which  it  contains  under 
such  heads  as  The  Performance  of  your  Duties,  Your  Future,  Promotion, 
Wages,  Amount  of  Work,  Quality  of  Work,  etc.,  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it 
would  be  directly  helpful  to  a  vocational  counselor. 

Current  Literature 

Telephone  Topics,  issued  monthly  by  the  New  England  Telephone  and  Tele- 
graph Company.    Edited  by  employees. 


SURVEY  OF  OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  THE  GIRL 
OF  FOURTEEN  TO  SIXTEEN  YEARS 

BY  HARRIET  HAZEN  DODGE 
(Published  by  the  Girls'  Trade  Education  League,  Boston,  Massachusetts) 

I 
THE  FIELD  OF  WORK  AND  ITS  CONDITIONS 

The  field  of  work.  More  than  4000  girls  in  Boston  of  the  age 
of  fourteen  to  sixteen  years  are  working  for  wages.  Opportunity 
is  afforded  them  chiefly  by  the  department  stores,  the  candy  fac- 
tories, and  the  shoe  factories,  which  secure  about  60  per  cent  of 
the  total  number,  the  department  stores  leading  with  about  one 
third  of  all  employed. 

Outside  this  group  the  number  of  these  young  girls  in  any  indi- 
vidual industry  is  small,  those  industries  which  take  the  next  great- 
est numbers  being  knitting  mills,  paper-box  factories,  bookbinderies, 
laundries,  and  shops  producing  machine-made  clothing,  along  with 
those  where  the  cheaper  tailoring  is  done.  The  number  entering 
millinery  and  dressmaking  appears  to  be  constantly  decreasing, 
and  the  kind  of  work  offered  to  be  chiefly  that  of  errand  girl. 

A  remainder  of  20  to  24  per  cent  are  distributed  among  mis- 
cellaneous industries,  in  which,  with  the  exception  of  some  cases 
where  the  girls  are  engaged  in  packing  and  labeling,  the  number 
in  each  industry  is  small,  the  range  being  something  like  two  to 
thirty.  These  industries  include  among  others  so  great  a  variety 
as  addressing  and  mailing,  featherwork,  engraving,  electric  work, 
leather  work ;  braid  and  ornament,  brush,  buffing-wheel,  carpet, 
cigar,  cork,  druggists'-supplies,  elastic  and  rubber  goods,  extract, 
hardware,  nail,  novelty,  preserved-fruit,  and  tin-can  manufacturing. 

In  this  miscellaneous  group  young  girls  are  found  in  the  cigar 
industry  employed  in  stripping  the  midrib  from  the  tobacco  leaves, 


572  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

"  branding  "  or  stamping  the  name  on  the  cigars  by  a  machine 
operated  by  a  foot  lever,  and  labeling  the  boxes  after  they  have 
been  packed  ;  in  the  manufacture  of  carpets  they  "set"  the  colors 
for  the  printer,  who  calls  these  out  by  numbers,  to  which  the  color 
setters  must  quickly  respond  by  rolling  along  its  track  the  right 
box  of  dye  to  the  spot  where  it  is  needed  in  coloring  the  design ; 
in  buffing-wheel  manufacture  they  unfold  bolts  of  flannel  and  refold 
them  again  in  layers,  then  when  circular  pieces  have  been  cut 
from  these  they  place  them  one  on  top  of  the  other,  preparatory 
to  their  being  stitched  many  times  around  on  a  machine  to  form 
the  buffing  wheel ;  in  brush  making  they  insert  handles  in  ferrules, 
fasten  ferrules  to  handles,  weigh  and  insert  bristles,  and  when  the 
brush  is  finished  wrap  the  bristles  with  paper  before  packing ;  in 
novelty  manufacture  they  fold,  inspect,  erase  soiled  spots  from,  and 
count  Christmas  and  Easter  cards  and  valentines,  and  do  simple 
pasting  on  these  and  on  calendars,  and  collate  the  calendar  leaves  ; 
in  engraving  they  lay  the  cards  one  at  a  time  on  the  copper  plate 
for  the  engraver,  whose  hands,  covered  with  ink,  are  too  soiled  to 
touch  them ;  in  featherwork  they  tie  ends  of  ostrich  feathers  to 
fashion  willow  plumes,  and  assemble  pieces  of  marabou  on  a  series 
of  iron  teeth  or  prongs,  preparatory  to  the  making  of  boas ;  in 
electric  work  they  wind  wire  and  assemble  pieces  of  apparatus ; 
in  leather  work,  such  as  the  making  of  pocketbooks,  bags,  and 
belts,  they  assemble  parts,  do  simple  pasting,  and  turn  the  edges  of 
the  leather ;  in  thread  and  twine  factories  they  "doff,"  that  is, remove 
the  bobbins  from  their  spindles  when  they  are  filled  with  the  spun 
yarn  and  replace  them  with  empty  ones  ;  in  addressing  and  mailing 
they  insert  circulars  in  envelopes  and  address  them  in  longhand. 

With  the  exception  of  cigar  making,  carpet  manufacture,  and 
leather  work,  the  usual  wage  in  these  occupations,  even  after  con- 
secutive years  of  employment,  is  $5  to  $7,  and  there  is  almost  no 
opportunity  for  advancement  either  in  wage  or  manual  skill,  while 
in  the  novelty-card  manufacture  and  addressing  and  mailing  the 
work  is  nearly  always  temporary. 

In  the  cigar  manufacture,  which  is  strongly  unionized,  the  be- 
ginner in  stripping  tobacco  leaves  serves  an  apprenticeship  of  two 
weeks  at  $3.50,  at  the  end  of  which  time  she  receives  the  regular 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS  573 

wage  of  $7.  After  gaining  experience  and  skill,  she  may  advance 
on  piecework  to  the  maximum  of  $10  to  $11.  Labeling  and 
stamping  are  paid  by  the  week  from  $5  to  $7. 

In  the  carpet  industry  young  girls  start  on  a  low  wage  and  in 
work  which  is  very  disagreeable  because  of  the  chemical  action  of 
the  dye  on  clothing,  nails,  and  skin,  but  there  is  the  possibility 
of  advancement  to  rilling,  or  winding  the  drums  of  yarn,  and  to 
printing  the  design  in  colors  by  a  set  pattern,  with  practically 
steady  employment  and  a  comparatively  fair  wage. 

The  leather  work  offers  the  possibility  of  increase  in  wages 
above  the  $5-to-$6  wage,  and  for  a  small  number  of  older  workers 
the  opportunity  of  operating  power  sewing  machines. 

In  the  remainder  of  these  miscellaneous  industries  girls  are  for 
the  most  part  packing,  bottling,  and  labeling,  for  example,  in 
biscuit,  preserved-fruit,  druggists '-supplies,  extract,  and  nail  manu- 
facturing ;  or  "  finishing,"  that  is,  "  trimming  "  or  cutting  threads 
on  a  machine-stitched  product,  as  in  the  case  of  elastic  and  rubber 
goods ;  or  doing  rude  sewing,  as  that  of  tags  on  garments  and 
braid  ornaments  on  cards.  In  all  these  cases  the  usual  wage  is 
$4  to  $5,  and  very  rarely  exceeds  $6. 

The  limited  range  of  choice.  Such  is  the  occupational  field  open 
to  the  fourteen-to-sixteen-y ear-old  girl.  Seldom,  because  of  her  im- 
maturity, can  she  secure  general  office  work,  even  though  she  be 
an  accurate  speller  and  bright  in  arithmetic ;  naturally,  she  is  con- 
sidered by  her  parents  as  too  young  to  go  away  from  home  to  the 
responsibilities  of  domestic  service,  and  for  like  reason  personal 
service,  such  as  that  of  nursery  maid,  is  all  but  barred,  while  the 
minimum-age  requirement  of  the  infants'  hospitals  which  train  girls 
for  this  work  is  seventeen  years.  To  become  a  telephone  operator 
she  must  also  be  at  least  seventeen  years  of  age,  and  the  Telephone 
Company  gives  preference  always  to  those  girls  who  have  had  high- 
school  education,  almost  never  taking  a  girl  who  has  had  only  the 
grammar-school  course.  The  highly  skilled  trades  of  millinery  and 
dressmaking  have  practically  closed  their  doors  on  the  fourteen-to- 
sixteen-year-old  apprentice,  although  there  is  constant  demand  for 
older  girls  who  have  real  ability  or  who  have  had  training  before 
entering  the  shops. 


574  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Range  of  choice  for  the  untrained  fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old 
girl,  therefore,  lies  almost  absolutely  between  the  factory  and  the 
department  store,  and  even  within  these  restricted  boundaries  pos- 
sibilities are  lessening.  One  of  the  largest  department  stores  in 
Boston  has  recently  set  the  minimum  age  of  all  female  employees 
at  seventeen,  including  stock  and  bundle  girls. 

Many  individual  establishments  in  the  factoryized  industries  offer- 
ing work  which  she  can  perform  will  not  employ  the  fourteen-to- 
sixteen-year-old  girl  because  she  is  "too  immature,"  "  thoughtless," 
"childish,"  "undersized  and  slow  to  grasp  details,"  "careless," 
"frivolous,"  "irresponsible,"  "full  of  kinks";  and,  as  one  far- 
sighted  employer  said,  "  the  firm  is  looking  for  dividends  and  it 
cannot  afford  the  economic  waste."  In  the  minds  of  many  em- 
ployers just  the  two  years'  more  maturity  is  a  decided  asset,  while 
some  in  the  same  industry  in  which  others  are  employing  the 
fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  girl  will  not  take  girls  under  eighteen. 
Employers  who  express  approval  of  the  child-worker  do  so  because 
"  her  fingers  are  nimble,"  because  she  is  "  more  easily  taught  their 
ways,"  or  because,  when  there  is  a  lack  of  supply  of  experienced 
and  mature  workers,  they  resort  to  "taking  her  on  and  training 
her."  It  may  be  said  here  that  in  establishments  where  the  stand- 
ard is  higher  in  regard  to  age  requirements  it  is  nearly  always 
above  the  average  in  other  respects. 

In  the  group  of  occupations  employing  the  greatest  number  of 
fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  girls  —  namely,  the  candy  factory,  the 
department  store,  and  the  shoe  factory  —  the  last  two  hold  oppor- 
tunities for  advancement  to  a  high  wage.  In  the  stitching  room 
of  the  shoe  factory  are  workers  excellently  paid  who  started  at  the 
age  of  fourteen,  and  in  the  department  stores  there  are  assistant 
buyers  and  buyers  who  have  risen  to  their  present  position  from 
that  of  cash  girl  and  are  receiving  salaries  well  into  the  thousands. 
Bookbinding,  paper-box  making,  clothing-machine  operating,  the 
knitting  mills,  and  the  laundries  include  work  which  is  semiskilled 
and  which  affords  to  some  a  living  wage.  That  opportunity  for 
advancement  is  wholly  lacking  in  many  of  the  occupations  which 
the  fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  girl  enters  has  already  been  pointed 
out.  But  where  opportunity  does  exist  for  advancement  to  more 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS  575 

desirable  positions,  even  in  the  first  possible  steps,  whether  it  be 
from  bundling  to  selling  on  the  bargain  table  in  the  department 
store,  or  from  the  totally  unskilled  task  of  the  factory  to  the  task 
which  is  slightly  skilled,  the  sifting  process  for  the  mass  of  young 
girl-workers  is  a  merciless  one,  and  is  based  upon  perseverance 
and  capability  noticeably  above  the  average,  upon  a  tactful  aggres- 
siveness, and  upon  the  existence  of  a  vacancy  above.  Dropped  into 
the  monotonous,  unskilled,  though  manually  active,  tasks  of  the 
factory,  or  the  more  attractive  but  continuously  low-paid  tasks  of 
the  department  store,  the  average  young  girl-worker  lacks  the  con- 
trol, the  perseverance,  the  far-sightedness,  and  the  patience  to  stick 
to  and  perform  her  present  task  with  an  eye  to  a  position  beyond. 

One  of  two  things  often  happens  therefore  —  she  shifts  from 
one  place  to  another  looking  vainly  for  something  more  satisfactory, 
or  her  sensitiveness  gives  way  to  dull  resignation,  and  small  flames 
of  initiative  and  ambition  easily  die  out.  In  the  factor}''  she  fre- 
quently remains  year  after  year  at  the  same  low-paid  work,  which 
develops  neither  manual  skill  nor  intelligence.  In  the  department 
store  studies  of  the  situation  thus  far  make  it  apparent  that  the 
great  majority  of  cash  and  bundle  girls  do  not  reach  selling,  but, 
discouraged  by  the  low  wage  and  the  keenness  of  competition  in 
getting  ahead,  they  drift  instead  into  other  occupations,  obviously 
those  of  the  factory,  with  the  hope,  sometimes  realized,  sometimes 
not,  of  "  doing  better  "  elsewhere,  in  wages  at  least. 

The  girl's  handicap  in  schooling.  Often  when  the  fourteen-year- 
old  girl  enters  industry  the  amount  of  mental  training  which  she 
has  gained  from  school  is  but  the  minimum  required  by  law.  The 
department  store  lays  more  emphasis  upon  schooling  than  the  fac- 
tory, where  the  requirement  in  this  respect  is  usually  the  legal  one 
only,  but  in  the  former  a  full  grammar-school  education  is  not 
necessary,  only  one  store  in  Boston  requiring  it.  The  mass  of  our 
fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  wage  earners  have  received  far  less 
than  the  full  grammar  schooling,  and  very  many  whose  associations 
in  their  home  life  are  constantly  with  those  of  foreign  birth  and 
foreign  language  enter  upon  their  vocational  careers  able  merely 
to  pass  the  letter  of  the  law—  "  to  read  at  sight  and  write  legibly 
simple  sentences  in  the  English  language." 


576  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

And  yet  almost  every  employer  in  factories,  describing  the  type 
of  girl  he  desires,  specifies  the  "bright"  girl.  This  means  the 
girl  who  is  naturally  bright,  who  understands  the  directions  of  her 
forewoman  easily,  and  who  uses  judgment,  even  in  doing  unskilled 
work.  But  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the  handicap  in  meeting  this 
qualification  for  the  foreign-born  girl  whose  school  life  ends  with 
the  educational  requirement  by  law  in  Massachusetts  for  the  girl 
who  would  seek  work  at  fourteen. 

The  girl's  handicap  in  health.  In  early  wage  earning,  not  only 
does  the  girl's  mentality  tend  to  become  warped,  but  frequently 
her  health  becomes  impaired  also.  Her  work  usually  requires  con- 
stant sitting  or  constant  standing.  It  takes  her  suddenly  from  some 
sunshine,  some  out-of-doors,  and  some  play  at  least,  confining  her 
for  an  eight-  or  nine-hour  day  at  a  set  task  indoors,  too  often  under 
workroom  conditions  which,  in  matters  of  ventilation,  spacing,  and 
light,  are  directly  opposed  to  her  physical  welfare.  For  these  reasons, 
when  range  of  choice  for  the  girl  is  limited  to  store  or  factory,  other 
things  being  equal,  it  is  preferable  for  her  to  find  a  place  near 
enough  her  own  home  so  that  she  can  secure  out-of-door  air  in 
walking  to  and  from  her  work,  go  home  for  a  warm  lunch,  and 
save  car  fares. 

The  problem  for  the  educator.  The  wage-earning  world  affords 
the  untrained  fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  girl  meager  opportunities, 
and  it  necessarily  places  a  low  valuation  on  her  earning  capacity. 
Because  of  the  unskilled  work  which  it  gives  her  to  perform,  it 
has  an  influence  upon  her  efficiency  as  a  future  worker  and  upon 
her  future  worth  as  a  human  being,  which  is  nearly  always  a  de- 
structive one.  Added  to  this  stands  the  now  well-established  fact 
that  the  majority  of  girls  do  not  leave  school  early  for  work  be- 
cause of  financial  conditions  of  the  home.  Instead,  they  leave 
because  "  other  girls  are  leaving,"  because  they  are  "too  big  for 
their  class,"  because  they  "  don't  get  on  well  in  their  studies,"  or 
because  they  are  "  tired  of  school  and  would  rather  go  to  work." 

The  situation,  therefore,  presents  a  serious  problem  to  educators, 
for  the  solution  of  which  they  have  begun  earnestly  to  strive.  This 
is  particularly  true  in  Boston.  Here  the  public  trade  school  appeals 
to  many  girls  who  would  otherwise  have  left  school  at  the  earliest 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS  577 

possible  moment,  but  who  now  obtain  further  schooling  and  spe- 
cial training  in  the  trades  of  millinery,  dressmaking,  and  clothing- 
machine  operating. 

At  the  North  Bennet  Street  Industrial  School  experimental 
work  is  being  done  under  private  enterprise  but  subject  to  the 
supervision  and  approval  of  the  Board  of  Superintendents  of  the 
Boston  Public  Schools,  looking  towards  a  possible  modification  of 
the  upper  grammar  school  which  shall  be  especially  adapted  to 
pupils  who  leave  school  early  to  enter  industrial  pursuits.  The  girls 
are  taught  sewing,  cooking,  and  housekeeping,  learn  something  of 
textiles,  and  receive  instruction  in  academic  subjects  particularly 
helpful  in  wage  earning,  such  as  arithmetic  and  English. 

The  public  continuation  classes  in  preparatory  salesmanship 
enable  girls  employed  in  such  positions  as  cash,  bundle,  and 
stock  girls  to  become  better  prepared  for  advancement  in  their 
work,  and  more  intelligent  generally.  They  are  allowed  by  their 
employers  to  attend  these  classes  without  loss  of  pay  for  the 
time  taken. 

Through  a  public  continuation  school  recently  established  in  the 
North  End  for  the  girls  working  in  the  candy  factories,  an  experi- 
ment is  being  made  in  furnishing  educational  opportunities  to  those 
who  have  left  school  unfitted  for  successful  and  happy  lives.  A 
certain  number  of  these  girls  are  allowed  by  their  employers  to 
attend  the  school  for  a  specified  number  of  hours  a  week,  without 
decrease  in  wages.  They  are  given  a  course  in  household  arts, 
which  aims  to  give  them  greater  efficiency  and  more  healthful 
ideals  in  respect  to  the  service  which  they  may  render  in  industry 
or  in  the  home. 

The  whole  problem  raised  by  the  young  girl  in  industry  is  the 
development  and  conservation  of  worthy  womanhood  in  spite  of 
conditions  which  tend  to  suppress  and  destroy  it.  Its  solution  can 
be  effected  only  through  the  cooperation  of  educators  and  employ- 
ers, of  teachers  and  parents,  through  a  more  intimate  knowledge 
of  individual  girls  in  the  schoolroom  and  of  the  experience  of  girl 
wage  earners ;  and  through  an  adaptation  of  schools  and  classes 
to  the  real  needs  of  individual  girls  as  future  wage  earners  and 
home  makers. 


5/8  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

II 

OUTLINES  OF  PRINCIPAL  OCCUPATIONS 
DEPARTMENT-STORE  WORK 

EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  14-1 6-YEAR-OLD  GIRL 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


33%.    More  than  in  any  other  occupation. 


Kinds  of  work 


Cash  girl ;  bundle  girl. 


Beginning  wage 


$2.$o-$4  in  the  majority  of  stores. 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


Cash  girl  to  bundle  girl ;  bundle  girl  may  advance 
to  cashiering  and  office  work,  or  to  stock  girl 
and  selling. 


Qualifications 


Brightness,  alertness.  Ability  in  spelling,  penman- 
ship, arithmetic,  and  good  conversational  English. 
Practical  knowledge  of  fractions  in  making  out 
sale  slips  is*  especially  important. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 
in  respect  to : 

A.  Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

Doubtful  in  the  majority  of  stores.  Advancement 
to  selling  depends  upon  the  adaptability,  alert- 
ness, and  stature  of  the  girl,  upon  initiative  and 
capability  above  the  average.  If  a  girl  starts  at 
fourteen,  it  is  usually  from  three  to  five  years 
before  she  can  become  a  sales  girl.  Cashiers  re- 
ceive $4-$6,  and  general  office  girls  $4-$7-  The 
wage  of  stock  girls  is  $4-$6,  and  the  average 
wage  of  sales  girls  is  about  $7.  The  maximum  in 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


579 


A.    Wage  (continued) 


selling  after  long  service  and  in  a  few  cases  is 
$io-$i2.  In  the  "room  at  the  very  top,"  how- 
ever, buyers  receive  $1000-^5000,  and  in  rare 
cases  much  more. 


B.   Manual  skill 


None. 


C.   Mental  development 


Poor  for  a  young  girl  lacking  in  healthy  ideals. 
Her  mind  tends  to  become  stunted  because  of 
false  standards,  based  upon  the  artificialities  of 
life,  which  are  chiefly  and  constantly  before  her 
view. 

Good  for  an  older  girl  with  strong  character  and 
power  of  discrimination.  Even  the  work  of  cash 
and  bundle  girls  affords  mental  exercise,  and  the 
selling  calls  for  keen  observation  and  tact.  Con- 
stant contact  with  people  tends  towards  breadth 
of  view. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


Constant  running  to  and  fro  of  the  cash  girls ;  con- 
stant standing  of  the  sales  girls  ;  poor  ventilation, 
especially  in  bargain  basements,  and  exposure 
to  drafts.  For  the  young  girl,  unsteadiness  of 
employment  and  extravagant  desire  for  dress 
induced  by  her  surroundings. 


Seasons 


Rush,  months  previous  to  Christmas. 

Dull,  January,  February,  and  the  summer  months. 


Hours  (usual) 


8-5.30  or  6,  with  a  half  hour  to  an  hour  for  lunch. 
During  summer  months,  closing  at  i  on  Satur- 
days and  at  5  on  other  days. 


Location  of 
establishments 


Center  of  the  city ;  Roxbury,  South  Boston. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


Classes  held  in  stores ;  continuation  classes  of 
public  schools,  and  of  Women's  Educational 
and  Industrial  Union. 


580 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


CANDY  MANUFACTURE 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  i4-i6-YEAR-OLD  GIRL 
1 6%.   Only  the  department  stores  employ  more. 


Kinds  of  work 


Floor  girls,  carrying  trays  from  one  department  to 
another ;  wrapping ;  packing. 


Beginning  wage 


$3-^4.50. 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


Floor  girl  to  wrapping  pieces  of  candy  in  tin  or  gilt 
foil  and  packing  candy  in  boxes ;  or  to  dipping, 
that  is,  immersing  the  cream  candy  molds 
(usually  with  the  hand)  in  melted  chocolate. 


Qualifications 


Cleanliness ;  manual  dexterity. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 
in  respect  to : 

A.    Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

Very  poor.  Average  wage,  $5~$6.  Maximum  for 
wrappers  and  packers,  $7  ;  for  dippers,  $8.  Pay- 
ment usually  on  the  time  basis. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


B.    Manual  skill 


Poor.    Dipping  requires  skill  of  a  low  grade  and 
all  the  other  kinds  of  work  are  unskilled. 


C.    Mental  development 


None. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


Temperature  of  the  dipping  rooms  above  or  below 
normal ;  tendency  of  new  workers  to  overindulge 
in  candy  eating. 


Seasons 


Busiest,  September  to  Christmas- 
Busy,  before  Easter  and  until  early  summer. 
Dull,  January  and  July. 


Hours  (usual) 


Fifty-four  hours  a  week  in  a  few  establishments ;  in 
others,  usually  the  largest  factories,  48-50  hours 
a  week,  with  a  half  holiday  Saturday.  7.30  or  8 
to  5.30  or  6,  with  a  half  hour  to  an  hour  for  lunch. 


Location  of 
establishments 


North  End  chiefly ;  South  Boston. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


None  outside  the  factory. 


582 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


BOOT  AND  SHOE  MANUFACTURE 

EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  i4-i6-YEAR-OLD  GIRL 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


Kinds  of  work 


Floor  girls,  doing  miscellaneous  work,  especially 
running  errands  between  different  departments ; 
tagging;  blacking ;  lacing;  sorting  and  assembling 
parts  of  shoe  ;  trimming  threads ;  cementing  bows 
and  ornaments  on  to  shoes ;  applying  cement  to 
edges  of  leather;  turning  and  pressing  these 
edges  by  hand.  The  small  young  girl  is  most 
often  placed  as  floor  girl,  and  at  sorting  and 
assembling. 


Beginning  wage 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


From  the  miscellaneous  processes  given  above,  to 
stitching,  in  which  the  first  process  is  stitching 
linings. 


Qualifications 


Manual  dexterity ;  speed ;  good  eyesight. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 

in  respect  to : 
A.    Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

Good  because  of  the  opportunities  in  the  stitching 
room.    The  kinds  of  work  here  are : 

1.  Stitching  on  linings.    Range  of  wage,  $6- 

$15 ;  usual  wage,  $7 -$9. 

2.  Top   stitching.     Range   of  wage,   $8-$i8 ; 

usual  wage,  $10- $12. 

3.  Tip  stitching  and  vamping.    Range  of  wage, 

$8-$25  ;  usual  wage,  $I2-$I5- 
Stitchers  are  paid  by  the  piece.    Seasonal  fluc- 
tuation lowers  the  average  wage  for  the  year, 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


583 


A.    Wage  (continued] 


which  remains,  however,  above  that  in  clothing- 
machine  operating.    (See  Clothing  Industry.) 


B.   Manual  skill 


Fair.  The  work  in  the  stitching  room  calls  for 
skill  of  much  the  same  order  as  that  in  clothing- 
machine  operating. 


C.   Mental  development 


Poor. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


On  the  work  in  the  stitching  room,  eyestrain ; 
tense  application  and  overspeeding  on  account 
of  piecework ;  noise  and  jar  of  machines.  In 
some  processes,  dirtiness  of  work. 


Seasons 


Busy,  summer  and  winter  months. 
Dull,  late  spring  and  late  fall. 


Hours  (usual) 


7.30-5.30,  with   an  hour  or  a  half  hour  for  lunch, 
and  a  half  day  on  Saturday  in  the  summer. 


Location  of 
establishments 


Jamaica  Plain,  South  Boston,  East  Boston. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


None  outside  the  factory. 


584 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


DRESSMAKING 

EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  14-1 6-YEAR-OLD  GIRL 

\\%-2%.   Almost  none  as  apprentices;  chiefly  as 
errand  girls. 


When  doing  apprentice  work,  sewing  on  hooks 
and  eyes,  overcasting,  seam  binding. 


Kinds  of  work 


Beginning  wage 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


Assisting  in  waist  and  skirt  finishing. 


Qualifications 


A  real  liking  to  sew ;  a  desire  to  fashion  things 
from  materials ;  ability  to  use  the  hands  readily  ; 
good  eyesight ;  ability  to  apply  oneself  steadily  ; 
quickness  of  movement ;  good  general  education. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 
in  respect  to : 

A.    Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

Poor  for  the  untrained  fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old 
girl,  as  she  is  nearly  always  used  for  errands 
rather  than  in  apprenticeship. 

Good  for  the  older  girl  with  marked  ability  or  with 
trade  training. 

The  average  dressmaker's  assistant  gets  $6- 
$9.  Wages  range  from  the  apprentice's  fee  to 
the  $3o-$4o  week  wage  of  head  waist  drapers  in 
dressmaking  shops.  A  person  who  becomes  head 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


585 


A.    Wage  (continued) 


of  her  own  establishment  may  secure  $1000- 
$5000  or  more  income.  The  dressmaker  who 
goes  out  by  the  day  receives  $i. 50-^3. 50,  accord- 
ing to  her  ability. 


B.    Manual  skill 


Good. 


C.    Mental  development 


Good.  The  work  demands  intelligence,  it  offers  a 
stimulus  to  the  imaginative  and  creative  sense, 
and  enables  the  girl  to  apply  what  she  learns  to 
the  making  of  her  own  clothes. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


Eyestrain ;  constant  sitting ;  overtime  in  rush 
seasons ;  hurried  lunch  hours ;  danger  in  the 
large  dressmaking  shops  that  a  girl  remain  on  a 
subdivision  of  the  work  and  so  fail  to  master  the 
trade ;  in  some  establishments  irregularity  in 
receipt  of  wages,  due  to  delay  of  customers  in 
paying  bills. 


Hours  (usual) 


Work  is  steady  for  nine  to  ten  months  of  the  year, 
with  two  dull  months  in  summer  and  sometimes 
one  in  winter. 


Seasons 


8.30-5.30  or  6,  with  a  half  hour  to   an  hour  for 
lunch,  the  entire  six  days  in  the  week. 


Location  of 
establishments 


Large  shops,  chiefly  Boylston  and  Tremont  streets ; 
others  scattered  over  the  city. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


Boston  Trade  School  for  Girls. 
High  School  of  Practical  Arts. 


586 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


MILLINERY 
EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  i4-i6-YEAR-OLD  GIRL 


Kinds  of  work 


In  apprenticeship,  doing  simple  work  in  the  making 
of  hats.  This  includes  making  bandeaux,  making 
and  sewing  in  linings,  making  frames,  and  put- 
ting on  facings. 


Beginning  wage 


Apprenticeship  is  usually  without  pay,  both  spring 
and  fall  seasons.    Then,  $^-$4. 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


From  apprenticeship  to  assistant  maker,  receiving 
$3~$4  at  first,  and  $5~$6  within  a  year  or  two. 


Qualifications 


Liking  to  sew ;  artistic  sense ;  originality ;  re- 
sourcefulness, not  only  in  the  trade  but  in  ability 
to  tide  over  the  dull  season  with  other  work ; 
dry  hands ;  ability  to  use  one's  fingers  quickly ; 
good  eyesight ;  good  general  education. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 

in  respect  to : 
A.   Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

Same   as   dressmaking.     Steps  of   advance   from 
assistant  maker  are  : 

1.  Maker  at  $8-$  12,  who  covers  as  well  as 

makes  frames  and  is  responsible  for 
seeing  that  the  hats  are  prepared  for 
the  trimmer. 

2.  Trimmer,    $i$-$2$    or    more,    demanding 

originality  and  artistic  ability. 

3.  Possibility  of  owning  one's  own  establish- 

ment, with  an  income  varying  according 
to  one's  business  ability. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


587 


B.    Manual  skill 


Good.    Same  as  dressmaking. 


C.    Mental  development 


Good.    Same  as  dressmaking. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


Tensity  and  unsteadiness  of  work  and  overtime 
resulting  from  the  short  rush  season  ;  eyestrain ; 
constant  sitting ;  hurried  lunch  hours. 


Seasons 


Twelve  to  fourteen  weeks  in  the  spring  and  again 
in  the  fall.  This  short  season,  added  to  the  low 
wage  of  the  first  two  or  three  years,  should  be 
looked  squarely  in  the  face  by  a  girl  who  must 
earn  her  own  living. 


Hours  (usual) 


Long.    In   the   busy  season   as   long  as   the   law 
permits. 


Location  of 
establishments 


Same  as  dressmaking. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


Boston  Trade  School  for  Girls. 
High  School  of  Practical  Arts. 


588 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


ERRAND  GIRL 

EMPLOVMENT  OF  THE  14-1 6-YEAR-OLD  GIRL 

Percentages  given  for  dressmaking,  millinery,  and 
the  clothing  industry  include  errand  girls.  From 
one  to  several  employed  in  different  dressmak- 
ing, millinery,  and  tailoring  establishments. 


Kinds  of  work 


Delivering  hats  and  gowns  to  customers ;  going  to 
the  stores  for  trimmings  and  materials  to  match 
samples. 


Beginning  wage 


3~$S  when  errand  girl  only. 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


Qualifications 


Brightness  and  carefulness,  and  responsibility 
receiving  and  executing  directions. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 
in  respect  to : 

A.    Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

None,  unless  a  girl  does  errands  incidentally  to 
apprenticeship,  which  but  very  seldom  happens. 
In  such  a  case  she  may  gradually  be  taught  the 
trade,  and  her  wage  ranges  from  car  fares  to  $2.50 
the  first  year. 

It  should  be  carefully  noted  that  if  an  un- 
trained girl  receives  the  higher  wage  in  a  milli- 
nery or  dressmaking  establishment  the  first  year, 
the  chances  are  that  she  is  not  being  taught  the 
trade.  This  is  particularly  true  of  millinery. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


589 


B.    Manual  skill 


None,  unless  accompanied  by  apprenticeship. 


C.    Mental  development 


None,  except  that  in  connection  with  apprentice- 
ship the  errand  work  is  of  value  in  familiarizing 
the  girl  with  the  various  materials  used  in  the 
trade  and  their  relative  prices. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


Lack  of  outlook. 

Weariness  engendered  by  running  hither  and 
thither  at  beck  and  call,  oftentimes  carrying 
large  parcels. 

Exposure  to  temptations  which  may  present  them- 
selves to  a  young  girl  going  about  in  a  large  city 
alone  and  unprotected. 


Seasons 


Demand  for  her  employment  comes  chiefly  in  the 
spring  and  fall. 


Hours  (usual) 


From  eight  to  ten  hours  a  day.    Uncertain,  and 
varying  with  the  need  for  the  girl's  services. 


Location  of 
establishments 


Opportunities  for 
training 


The  occupation  requires  none. 


590 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


CLOTHING  INDUSTRY 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  14-1 6-YEAR-OLD  GIRL 

(Products,  ready-made  and  cheaper  tailored  gar- 
ments.) 


Kinds  of  work 


For  the  untrained  girl,  unskilled  handwork,  or 
"  hand  finishing  " :  sewing  on  hooks  and  eyes 
and  buttons  ;  cutting  threads  ;  pinning ;  folding ; 
packing. 


Beginning  wage 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


The  untrained  fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  girl  is 
only  in  rare  instances  transferred  to  sewing  on 
the  power  machines.  Ordinarily  she  remains  on 
hand  finishing. 


Qualifications 


Good  eyesight,  carefulness,  application,  speed. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 
in  respect  to : 

A.    Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

Poor  in  hand  finishing.  Maximum  wage,  $6-$j. 
(Paid  by  the  week.) 

Fair  in  machine  work.  A  girl  advances  to  more 
difficult  processes  and  higher  wage  as  her  skill 
and  speed  increase.  Usual  wage,  $7-^9.  Maxi- 
mum, $io-$n.  (Paid  by  the  piece.)  Figures 
given  are  the  estimated  averages  for  the  year, 
allowing  for  unsteadiness  of  employment. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


591 


B.  Manual  skill 


Fair.  The  machine  work  calls  for  intelligent  con- 
trol of  hand  and  finger  movements,  fine,  quick, 
and  accurate. 


C.    Mental  development 


Doubtful.  It  is  possible,  when  a  girl  has  the  oppor- 
tunity to  handle  an  entire  garment,  to  gain  sug- 
gestions for  the  making  of  her  own  clothes. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


Eyestrain  ;  tense  application  and  overspeeding  on 
account  of  piecework ;  constant  sitting ;  noise 
and  jar  of  machinery. 


Seasons 


Seasons  fluctuating,  according  to  public  demand 
for  product.    In  general : 

Busy,  September-December,  March-June. 
Slack,  January-February,  July-August. 


Hours  (usual) 


8-6,  with  a  half  hour  to  an  hour  for  lunch.    In  some 
cases,  shortened  day  Saturday. 


Location  of 
establishments 


Factories  producing  machine-made  clothing,  chiefly 
Bedford  Street  district.  Tailoring  shops,  chiefly 
North  and  West  Ends. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


Boston  Trade  School  for  Girls. 
Hebrew  Industrial  School. 

These  schools  train  girls   in  clothing-machine 
operating. 


592 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


KNIT-GOODS  MAKING 

EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  14-1 6-YEAR-OLD  GIRL 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


Kinds  of  work 


Tagging,  packing,  putting  on  buttons  and  fasten- 
ers, and,  in  the  hosiery  mill,  looping  (operating 
a  machine  which  knits  the  stocking  toe)  and  top- 
ping (with  fingers  placing  the  stitches  which 
"  top "  the  foot  of  the  stocking  carefully  on 
metallic  points  arranged  on  a  ring,  preparatory 
to  the  knitting,  of  the  foot). 


Beginning  wage 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


From  the  small  jobs,  such  as  tagging,  to  hand 
finishing  (where  sweaters  are  made)  or  to  the 
knitting  machines,  and  from  time-work  to  piece- 
work. 


Qualifications 


Good  health,  especially  strong  lungs  and  good 
eyesight ;  keen  observation  ;  quick  motions  ; 
carefulness. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 
in  respect  to : 

A.    Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

Fair.   The   wage   for   the   work    on    the   knitting 
machines    ranges    from    $6-$i4.     Usual   wage, 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


593 


B.    Manual  skill 


Doubtful. 


C.   Mental  development 


None. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


Constant  sitting  or  constant  standing  during  long 
hours  ;  eyestrain  •  lint  in  the  atmosphere ;  noise 
of  machinery. 


Seasons 


Comparatively  steady,  what  fluctuations  there  are 
varying  in  different  years. 


Hours  (usual) 


7.30-12,  and  from  1-6.  Establishments  giving 
Saturday  afternoons  usually  have  a  shorter  lunch 
hour. 


Location  of 
establishments 


South  Boston,  Bedford  and  Albany  streets  districts, 
and  West  Roxbury. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


None  outside  the  factory. 


594 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


LAUNDRY  WORK 
EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  14-1 6-YEAR-OLD  GIRL 


Kinds  of  work 


"  Shaking,"  which  consists  of  vigorously  shaking 
the  damp  and  crumpled  pieces  into  a  smoother 
state  and  piling  them  one  on  top  of  another 
ready  for  the  mangles ;  wrapping  laundry  for 
delivery. 


Beginning  wage 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


From  shaking  to  receiving  from  or  feeding  the 
mangle.  Feeding  the  mangle  means  placing  the 
pieces  smoothly  and  accurately  on  moving  metal 
"  aprons  "  which  carry  them  under  heated  rollers, 
by  which  they  are  dried  and  pressed.  Receiving 
means  folding  the  clothes  rapidly  and  neatly  as 
they  come  out  smooth  and  dry.  Wage,  $4.50-$$. 


Qualifications 


Physical  strength ;  endurance  ;  quickness  of  move- 
ment. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 

in  respect  to : 
A.   Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

Poor  for  the  fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  girl.  It  is 
only  in  a  very  exceptional  case  that  she  is  pos- 
sessed of  the  necessary  strength  and  the  perse- 
verance to  remain  in  the  work  long  enough  to 
reach  the  starching  and  ironing  room.  The  proc- 
esses of  starching  and  ironing  are  paid  by  the 
piece,  with  a  wage  in  the  one  case  of  $6-$i2 ;  in 
the  other,  $8-$i2.  But  these  processes  are  per- 
formed only  by  the  older  girls  and  by  women. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


595 


B.    Manual  skill 


Poor   in   most   of  the   processes.    Fair   in   fancy 
ironing. 


C.    Mental  development 


None. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


Constant  standing;  in  the  shaking,  strain  on  the 
shoulders  and  back.  Oftentimes  dampness  and 
poor  ventilation ;  danger,  in  spite  of  the  guard 
required  by  law,  of  an  injured  hand  on  the 
mangling  machine  if  a  worker  is  careless. 


Seasons 


Busiest,  summer. 
Slack,  winter. 


52-54  hours  per  week.    Daily  hours  vary  with  the 
different  days  of  the  week. 


Location  of 
establishments 


Chiefly  in  South   End.    Some  in  Dorchester  and 
North  End. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


None  outside  the  laundries. 


596 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


PAPER-BOX  MAKING 

EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  14-1 6- YEAR-OLD  GIRL 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


Kinds  of  work 


As  helpers  or  "  strikers  "  moistening  paper  with 
glue ;  turning  up  the  sides  and  ends  of  boxes 
ready  to  be  "  stayed  "  or  fastened  at  the  corners  ; 
slipping  the  covers  on  to  completed  boxes ; 
piling ;  carrying ;  packing. 


Beginning  wage 


5.50-14. 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


From  "  striking  "  to  machine  work,  which  includes 
the  operating  of  covering,  banding,  staying,  and 
lacing  machines. 


Qualifications 


Accuracy  of  hand  and  eye ;  deftness ;  neatness ; 
speed. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 

in  respect  to : 
A.   Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

Doubtful    in   the   factories   making    plain   boxes. 

Wages  range  from  $7 -$12.    Usual  wage,  $j-$>8. 

Paid  by  the  piece. 
Fair  in  factories  making  fancy  candy  boxes,  where 

in  bench  work  the  box  is  made  by  hand.   Wages 

in  this  work  range  from  $8-$  14.   Usual  wage, 

$10- $12.    Paid  by  the  piece. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


597 


B.    Manual  skill 


None  in  "striking"  and  little  on  the  machine  work; 
fair  on  the  bench  work,  which  requires  the  exer- 
cise of  a  skillful  hand,  and  while  it  does  not  de- 
mand originality,  does  give  the  opportunity  for 
fashioning  a  thing  in  its  wholeness. 


C.    Mental  development 


None. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


Odor  and  handling  of  glue,  disagreeable  to  some 
girls,  especially  at  first ;  danger  of  serious  injury 
to  the  hands  in  operating  the  staying  machine  if 
a  girl  fails  to  make  use  of  the  guards  which  are 
provided  by  law. 


Seasons 


Vary  according  to  the  product.  In  nearly  every 
factory,  however,  dull  through  January,  after 
Easter,  and  in  midsummer. 


Hours  (usual) 


Somewhat  less  than  54  a  week  in  most  of  the 
factories.  8-5.30,  with  a  half  hour  for  lunch ; 
or  7.30-5.30,  with  an  hour  for  lunch. 


Location  of 
establishments 


North  Station  district. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


None  outside  the  factory. 


598 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


BOOKBINDING 

EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  14-1 6- YEAR-OLD  GIRL 


Kinds  of  work 


The  less  difficult  folding  by  hand  of  printed  sheets 
for  book  forms ;  feeding  folding  machines ;  in- 
serting pamphlets  in  envelopes  for  mailing. 


Beginning  wage 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


Transfer  from  the  simpler  to  the  more  difficult 
processes,  such  as  more  difficult  hand  folding ; 
pasting ;  laying  of  gold  leaf  on  book  covers ; 
machine  sewing. 


Qualifications 


Neatness  ;  accuracy ;  speed. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 

in  respect  to : 
A.    Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 

Poor  for  the  fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old  girl  be- 
cause of  the  temporary  and  unskilled  work  which 
is  so  often  given  her  when  she  is  employed. 

Doubtful  for  others  because  of  the  increasing  num- 
ber of  machines  which  are  gradually  displacing 
handwork  in  almost  every  process.  Usual  wage 
of  experienced  workers,  $y-$8.  Most  of  the  work 
is  paid  by  the  piece.  (Figures  given  are  the  esti- 
mated average  wages  for  the  year,  allowing  for  un- 
steadiness of  employment.)  Maximum,  $io-$i2. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


599 


B.    Manual  skill 


Doubtful.  The  handwork  which  is  done  by  girls 
and  women  to-day  is  for  the  most  part  me- 
chanical. 


C.    Mental  development 


Doubtful.  In  some  of  the  binderies  a  variety  of 
interesting  printed  and  illustrative  matter  passes 
through  the  worker's  hands,  which,  in  spite  of 
the  required  speed,  may  give  to  an  intelligent 
person  some  play  of  imagination. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


In  gold  laying  there  is  a  very  serious  lack  of 
ventilation,  due  to  the  fact  that  the  slightest 
stir  of  air  interferes  with  the  proper  laying  of 
the  thin  gold  leaf. 


Seasons 


Vary  greatly  with  the  different  binderies ;  for 
example,  those  which  handle  school  books  are 
busiest  during  the  weeks  of  summer  vacation ; 
those  putting  out  fiction  are  the  busiest  in  the 
months  preceding  Christmas. 


Hours  (usual) 


8.30-7  2  ;  1-5.30.    Saturday  afternoons  free  through- 
out the  year. 


Location  of 
establishments 


Chiefly  Summer,  Federal,  and  Purchase  streets. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


None  outside  the  bindery  except  the  U.  S.  Grant 
School  in  East  Boston,  a  public  prevocational 
center. 


600  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

PACKING  AND  LABELING 


Approximate  percentage 
of  all  employed 


EMPLOYMENT  OF  THE  14-1 6- YEAR-OLD  GIRL 

Impossible  to  determine.  A  great  many  engaged 
in  this  occupation  in  connection  with  various 
industries. 


Kinds  of  work 


Packing  in  boxes  all  sorts  of  goods,  according 
to  the  industry,  from  nails  to  bonbons ;  pasting 
labels  on  boxes. 


Beginning  wage 


First  steps  of 
advancement 


Qualifications 


Speed,  and  in  the  labeling  a  certain   degree  of 
neatness  and  accuracy. 


Outlook  for  the  girl 

in  respect  to : 
A.   Wage 


THE  OCCUPATION 
Very  poor.   Maximum,  $5-$6. 


OCCUPATIONS  OPEN  TO  GIRLS 


60 1 


B.    Manual  skill 


Poor. 


C.   Mental  development 


None. 


Disadvantages  or 
dangers 


Lack  of  outlook. 


Seasons 


Vary  according  to  the  industry. 


Hours  (usual) 


Vary  according  to  the  industry. 


Location  of 
establishments 


All  over  the  city. 


Opportunities  for 
training 


The  occupation  requires  none. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  THE  BUILDING 
TRADES 

BY  ERNEST  AVES 

(From  a  Report  of  an  Inquiry  into  the  Conditions  of  Juvenile  Employment 

in  London) 

THE  POSITION  IN  THE  BUILDING  TRADES 

The  area  of  the  inquiry  into  the  conditions  affecting  juvenile 
employment  in  the  London  building  trades  was  limited  almost 
entirely  to  the  county.  The  names  of  the  employers  seen  were 
derived  mainly  from  various  available  registers,  but,  in  a  few  dis- 
tricts, through  local  inquiry  at  the  labor  exchanges  and  else- 
where, as  to  whom  it  would  be  most  useful  to  see.  In  addition,  a 
few  trade  unionists,  foremen  and  others,  have  been  interviewed. 

In  the  building  and  allied  trades  something  over  400  employers 
of  all  grades  were  seen  in  the  few  weeks  in  February  and  March, 
1911,  during  which  this  inquiry,  as  well  as  that  into  the  leather- 
working  industries,  was  in  most  active  progress.  During  the 
whole  or  part  of  this  period  four  investigators  were  engaged  in 
the  work. 

Although  the  inquiry  has  been  made  primarily  with  refer- 
ence to  juvenile  labor  in  connection  with  the  building  trades, 
the  subject  matter  may  be  conveniently  split  up  into  three  main 
divisions : 

1.  The  economic  characteristics  of  the  group  of  trades  investi- 

gated. 

2.  The  prevailing  conditions  as  regards  wages,  etc. 

3.  The  more  personal  elements  involved,  especially  the  outlook 

and  degree  of  responsibility  accepted  or  felt  by  the  main 
classes  concerned,  including  parents,  juveniles,  employers, 
and  journeymen. 

602 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     603 

CHARACTERISTICS 
A.   The  Group  as  a  Whole 

The  occupations  grouped  under  the  building  and  allied  trades 
are  highly  complex,  and  modern  tendencies  are  making  them  in- 
creasingly so,  with  the. result  that  generalizations,  never  very  easy 
to  make  with  regard  to  this  group,  are  becoming  still  more  insecure. 
Before  proceeding  to  any  analysis  of  the  building  trades  according 
to  occupation,  certain  broad  features  may,  however,  be  indicated  : 

1.  The  building  trades  are  free,  on  the  whole,  from  the  com- 

petition of  products  introduced  from  external  sources  of 
supply,  and  thus  to  a  great  extent  from  external  competi- 
tion in  any  form. 

2.  They  form  the  largest  group  of  industries  in  London,  and 

are  connected  with  the  supply,  whether  in  the  form  of 
dwelling  or  business  accommodation,  of  that  which  ranks 
among  the  primary  requirements  of  life,  in  connection  with 
which,  moreover,  partly  through  legislation  and  municipal 
administration  and  partly  through  more  general  causes, 
the  demand  is  tending  constantly  to  change  and  to  rise. 

3.  Most  of  the   separate   occupations  demand  a  considerable 

amount  of  skill,  while  those  that  rank  as  skilled  at  all 
require,  at  least  in  their  highest  branches,  much  skill, 
and  thus  for  their  mastery  thorough  training. 

4.  As  a  group  the  occupations  rank  among  those  which  are  the 

more  highly  organized,  and  in  which,  speaking  generally, 
recognized  and  relatively  favorable  conditions  as  regards 
wages  and  hours  of  labor  prevail. 

5.  The  trades  provide  almost  exclusively  occupations  for  males 

and  for  the  most  part  require  not  less  than  an  average 
standard  of  strength  and  soundness  of  constitution. 
In  addition  it  may  be  mentioned : 

6.  That  experience   gained   in  some   of   the    most   important 

branches  of  the  building  trades,  including  carpentry,  join- 
ery, bricklaying,  and  plumbing,  is,  next  to  that  of  agricul- 
ture, most  likely  to  be  of  use  to  those  who  may  emigrate. 


604  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  above  are  considerations  that  make  roughly  for  the  economic 
strength  and  thus  for  the  advantageousness  of  this  group  of  occupa- 
tions. There  are,  however,  other  considerations  which  tell  in  the  op- 
posite direction,  and  among  these  the  following  may  be  mentioned  : 

1 .  Employment  in  some  branches  of  the  trade  is  apt  to  be  un- 

usually precarious  owing  largely  to  a  normal  seasonal  irregu- 
larity in  the  aggregate  demand  and  also  to  the  rapidity  with 
which  the  amount  of  work  in  hand  by  the  individual  em- 
ployer, be  he  master  builder  or  specialist,  tends  to  change 
in  volume.  It  is  thus  an  occupation  in  which  special  vigi- 
lance is  apt  to  be  required  to  secure  continuous  employment. 

2.  Although  rarely  in  any  sudden  and  unusual  degree,  building 

occupations  are,  nevertheless,  in  some  cases,  liable  to  dis- 
placement by  the  use  of  new  material  in  construction  ;  by 
the  fresh  uses  to  which  old  materials  are  put,  or  by  fresh 
combinations  adopted ;  by  machinery ;  and  by  changes 
in  fashion. 

3.  Over  wide  areas  in  the  county  of  London  building  extension 

has  finished  and  with  it  much  of  that  particular  kind  of 
demand  which  is  peculiar  to  a  young  and  expanding  center 
of  population. 

4.  The  great  activity  and  prosperity  of  the  building  trades  during 

the  closing  years  of  the  last  century,  culminating  in  1900, 
when  the  number  of  operatives  in  the  building  trades 
rapidly  increased,  has  been  followed  by  a  period  of  com- 
parative slackness,  if  not  of  positive  depression,  during 
which  it  has  been  difficult  for  the  new  members  of  the 
trade  to  be  satisfactorily  absorbed,  and  during  which, 
therefore,  there  has  been  an  unusually  small  number  of 
openings  for  fresh  learners. 

5.  A  large  supply  of  provincially  trained  labor  is  apt  to  be 

available  at  any  time  when  London  conditions  create 
fresh  openings. 

6.  The  kind  of  labor  that  the  London  building  trades  require, 

largely  because  of  the  quick  work  and  the  specialized  skill 
that  are  demanded  in  the  metropolis,  tends  to  make  it 
difficult  for  the  London  boy  to  start  in  most  of  them. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     605 

Such  considerations  as  those  just  enumerated  may  be  said  to 
weaken  the  economic  position  of  these  trades  either  as  affecting 
all  grades  or,  as  in  the  case  of  numbers  5  and  6,  especially  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  'juvenile. 

It  is  impossible  to  strike  a  balance  between  these  advantages 
and  disadvantages,  but  it  is  convenient  to  place  on  record  in  sum- 
marized form  some  of  the  general  considerations  that  have  to  be 
borne  in  mind  in  any  endeavor  to  appreciate  the  claims  of  the 
building  trades  in  London  as  a  field  of  employment  for  the  young. 

For  the  most  part  the  features  mentioned  above  refer  to  skilled 
branches  of  the  trade,  although  some  of  them,  both  on  the  side 
of  advantage  and  of  disadvantage,  refer  to  the  trade  as  a  whole 
and  are  thus  relevant  to  certain  occupations,  such  as  laborers,  ex- 
cavators, scaffolders,  roof  tilers,  and  others  with  whom  this  inquiry 
has  no  direct  concern,  either  because  no  industrial  training  is 
required  for  the  occupations  in  question  or  because  there  is  no 
scope  or  suitability  in  them  for  boy  labor. 

B.   The  Principal  Branches 

The  following  notes  refer  to  some  of  the  more  important  occupa- 
tions in  the  building  trades,  and  are  inserted  to  indicate  in  a  general 
way  the  position  which  they  appear  to  occupy  within  the  group : 

Bricklaying.  The  bricklayer  is  still  one  of  the  most  widely  and 
variously  requisitioned  classes  of  worker  in  the  building  trades,  and 
in  some  branches  of  his  craft  London  still  requires  the  highest 
examples  of  his  skill.  Relatively  to  the  total  volume  of  building 
enterprise  it  is,  however,  not  improbable  that  the  demand  for  the 
services  of  the  bricklayer  is  destined  to  diminish  owing  to  the 
use  of  iron  and  steel  in  building  construction,  of  machine-dressed 
stone,  and  of  reenforced  concrete. 

Reenforced  brickwork  has  also  been  experimented  with  success- 
fully, and  inasmuch  as,  if  adopted,  it  would  diminish  the  need  for 
some  of  the  more  skilled  portions  of  the  bricklayer's  art,  as  in 
the  gauged  brickwork  of  arches,  its  introduction,  although  using 
the  bricklayer's  own  particular  medium,  would  not  be  calculated 
to  improve  his  position. 


6o6  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

At  the  moment,  however,  the  most  important  substitutes  for 
solid  brickwork  are  iron  and  steel  in  construction ;  stone  for  facing 
the  metal  framework  ;  and  occasionally  reenforced  concrete. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  extent  to  which  such  frameworks  are 
faced  with  brick  has  to  be  borne  in  mind,  while  the  extended  use 
of  inside  tiling  also  somewhat  increases  the  demand  for  the  brick- 
layer. This  work  is,  however,  shared  with  the  plasterers,  by  whom 
it  is  also  claimed,  and  with  specialists,  who  may  have  been  either 
bricklayers  or  plasterers,  but  who  are  now  often  engaged  solely  on 
this  kind  of  work.  With  regard  to  dwelling  houses  in  which  fire- 
proof construction  is  not  regarded  as  necessary  and  in  which  ex- 
ceptional strength  and  simplicity  of  form  are  not  essentials,  fashion 
rather  than  new  methods  of  construction  are  probably  the  most 
important  influences  likely  to  affect  at  all  speedily  the  demand  for 
any  particular  class  of  worker.  At  the  present  moment,  for  in- 
stance, the  fashion  of  having  stone  frontages  when  they  can  be 
afforded  is  in  vogue,  but  there  is  no  certainty  that  this  will  con- 
tinue, and  a  revival  of  the  fashion  for  brick  frontages  might  be 
followed  by  an  actual  shortage  of  bricklayers  able  to  execute  the 
more  highly  skilled  branches  of  their  calling. 

In  spite,  therefore,  of  certain  changes  which  (especially  on  large 
buildings  involving  straightforward  work)  threaten  the  bricklayer's 
trade,  and  although,  as  stated,  his  share  in  the  aggregate  of  build- 
ing operations  is  likely  slightly  to  diminish,  there  is  no  reason  to 
anticipate  any  speedy  radical  change  in  the  extent  to  which  he 
will  be  required  in  the  building  trade. 

Masonry.  The  demand  for  masons  is,  like  that  for  bricklayers, 
somewhat  affected  by  the  increasing  extent  to  which,  in  certain 
classes  of  buildings,  iron  and  steel  are  used  in  construction  ;  but, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  other  trade,  the  effect  on  demand  is  dimin- 
ished by  the  common  practice  of  facing  with  stone,  although  in 
the  form  of  veneering  frontages  rather  than  of  solid  constructive 
work.  The  use  of  machinery  for  dressing  the  stone  and  the  use 
in  London  of  stone  prepared  and  dressed  at  the  quarries  are  two 
other  important  facts  to  be  noted  in  connection  with  this  trade. 

The  extent  to  which  stone  that  is  used  on  buildings  in  London  has 
been  prepared  in  the  quarries  has  reached  very  large  dimensions, 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     607 

but  is  stated  not  to  have  increased  appreciably  during  the  last 
nine  or  ten  years,  the  real  introduction  of  stone  thus  prepared 
having  taken  place  during  the  previous  ten  years.  Twenty  years 
ago  the  use  of  such  stone  in  London  was  the  exception ;  but  at 
that  period,  although  the  innovation  was  resisted,  the  rates  of 
wages  paid  to  masons  at  the  quarries  were  much  lower  than  those 
paid  in  London,  and  the  advantage  to  the  contractor  of  having 
his  stone  dressed  at  the  quarries  was  then  so  appreciable  that 
the  amount  thus  prepared  steadily  increased  in  volume  for  several 
years.  At  the  present  time,  however,  London  and  provincial  wages 
are  more  nearly  alike,  and  the  tendency  for  more  of  the  stone  used 
in  London  to  be  cut  and  dressed  at  the  quarry  thus  operates  with 
less  force.  The  advantage  of  avoiding  the  transport  of  waste 
material  by  working  the  stones  at  the  quarry  remains,  but  it  is  not 
so  great  as  is  sometimes  assumed,  because  the  railway  rates  for 
worked  stone  are  higher  than  those  for  the  undressed  material. 

Perhaps  more  important  as  an  active  influence  in  the  trade  than 
the  use  on  London  buildings  of  stone  worked  in  the  provinces  is 
the  increasing  use  of  machinery  in  the  preparation  of  stone.  Al- 
though this  tends  to  diminish  the  demand  for  hand  labor,  two 
compensating  effects  may  be  noted,  one  affecting  primarily  the 
quarryman  and  the  other  the  mason  himself.  Both  are  traceable 
to  the  fact  that  the  use  of  stone  in  building  construction  is  greatly 
stimulated  by  the  use  of  machinery  itself.  Not  only  is  the  quantity 
of  stone  thus  increased,  but  more  hard  stone  is  also  said  to  be  used 
and  more  labor  is  thus  apt  to  be  required  in  getting  it.  As  regards 
the  London  mason,  the  more  frequent  use  of  stone  on  buildings 
stimulates  demand  for  his  labor  both  through  the  supplementary 
work  that  has  necessarily  to  be  done  by  hand  even  when  machinery 
is  used,  and  also  through  the  additional  work  involved  in  the  actual 
fixing  of  the  stone  on  the  building.  In  at  least  two  ways,  there- 
fore, the  use  of  machinery  in  the  preparation  of  stone  sets  at  work 
certain  compensating  influences.  On  the  whole  it  is  probable  that 
the  character  of  the  work  of  the  mason  has  changed  and  is  likely  to 
change  more  than  the  aggregate  demand  for  his  services.  In  stone 
carving  the  demand  remains  to  a  great  extent  unaffected  by  me- 
chanical inventions,  and  is  subject  mainly  to  the  dictates  of  fashion. 


6o8  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Marble  masonry.  As  regards  the  increasing  use  of  machinery 
the  position  of  the  marble  mason  is  very  similar  to  that  of  other 
stonemasons,  but  the  extent  to  which  the  raw  material  is  in  this 
case  imported  renders  him  liable  to  a  certain  amount  of  foreign, 
as  distinct  from  provincial,  competition  and  a  considerable  quantity 
of  finished  work,  especially  in  stock  sizes,  is  imported,  mainly  from 
Belgium  and  Italy. 

Some  protection  from  this  form  of  competition  is  afforded  by 
the  conditions  of  London  work  to  which  reference  has  been  already 
made,  namely,  to  the  speed  with  which  contracts  have  frequently 
to  be  executed ;  but  when  there  is  time  there  is  an  increasing 
tendency  to  send  architects'  drawings  with  the  specifications  abroad. 
Although  this  competiton  has  been  felt  more  seriously  in  recent 
years,  it  is  said  not  to  have  reached  an  acute  stage.  The  character 
of  the  work  imported  is  of  a  good  as  well  as  a  cheap  class,  and  it 
is  stated  that  in  England  men  able  to  undertake  the  higher  class 
of  work,  and  especially  carving  work,  are  more  rarely  found  than 
in  Italy. 

Plastering.  Plasterers  are  divided  roughly  into  the  solid  or 
"  outside  "  workers  (that  is,  those  whose  work  is  done  on  the 
building)  and  the  comparatively  new  class  of  fibrous  or  "inside" 
workers  (that  is,  those  whose  work,  apart  from  fixing,  is  done  in 
the  shops) ;  and  the  latter  is  the  more  expanding  branch  of  the 
trade.  It  is  expanding  not  only  as  representing  a  process  that  is 
being  more  widely  adopted,  but  also  because  of  the  increasing  rich- 
ness of  the  plasterer's  work  that  is  more  frequently  attempted, 
because  more  easily  executed  and  repeated.  The  work,  apart  from 
the  designing,  involves  modeling  (largely  done  by  foreigners), 
making  the  molds,  casting,  and  fixing ;  and  while  in  some  of  the 
simpler  processes  a  lower  grade  of  labor  approximating  to  that 
of  the  unskilled  laborer  himself  suffices,  competent  plasterers, 
especially  if  they  know  the  solid  as  well  as  the  fibrous  work,  have 
probably  a  more  certain  prospect  of  employment  in  the  future 
than  any  other  important  class  of  the  building  trades.1 

1  It  should  be  observed  that  the  demand  for  plasterers  has  been  somewhat  exaggerated 
during  the  present  year  owing  to  the  numbers  required  for  temporary  work  at  the  Crystal 
Palace  in  connection  with  the  Festival  of  Empire,  at  the  White  City,  and  in  decorative  work 
for  the  Coronation. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     609 

Such  loss  of  solid  work  on  the  buildings  as  has  been  incurred 
through  the  extended  use  of  fibrous  plastering,  of  concrete  floors, 
and  of  partitions  of  various  kinds  that  dispense  with  either  the 
whole  or  a  great  part  of  the  plasterer's  labor,  is  to  some  extent 
compensated  by  the  greater  scope  for  his  work  on  exteriors  in 
the  shape  of  stucco  or  rough  cast. 

The  change  in  the  character  of  much  of  the  plasterer's  work 
renders  less  important  than  formerly  the  stoppage  of  the  supply 
of  learners  that  used  to  be  derived  from  the  "  hawk  "  boys  who 
served  the  plasterer  with  his  material  and  from  whom  the  ranks 
of  the  trade  were  mainly  recruited  up  to  about  twenty-five  or  more 
years  ago. 

The  place  of  the  hawk  boys  was  taken  by  that  of  laborers  owing 
to  the  preference  on  the  part  of  builders  for  having  men  on  the 
job  who  could  be  turned  more  rapidly  to  other  kinds  of  work  than 
simply  serving  the  plasterer.  In  its  ordinary  forms  plastering  is 
not  a  very  highly  skilled  trade,  but  the  shortage  of  plasterers  in 
the  past  appears  to  afford  an  illustration  in  the  recent  experience 
of  the  building  trades  in  which  the  neglect  of  the  responsibility  of 
training  learners  on  the  part  of  employers  led  to  conditions  that 
for  a  few  years  greatly  handicapped  the  trade. 

Painters.  The  ease  with  which  the  cruder  forms  of  the  painter's 
craft  can  be  acquired  probably  explains  in  part  the  frequent  com- 
plaint of  the  scarcity  of  men  who  are  fully  trained,  while  the  ex- 
ceptionally seasonal  character  of  the  demand  also  diminishes  the 
attractions  of  this  trade.  Moreover  certain  styles  of  painting, 
graining,  marbling,  stenciling,  and  gilding,  that  used  to  demand 
skill  in  decorative  work  have  largely  gone  out  of  fashion,  and  the 
simpler  style  now  in  vogue  —  especially  the  plain  white  ground- 
work, often  with  an  enamel  finish  —  requires  comparatively  little 
training. 

For  such  higher  branches  of  decorative  work  as  are  in  demand, 
although  opinion  is  somewhat  conflicting  on  this  matter,  there 
appears  to  be  a  fairly  sufficient  supply  of  the  necessary  labor.  It 
is  said,  however,  that  there  is  shortage  of  good  brush  hands,  that 
is,  of  those  who  (although  without  special  knowledge  of  their  craft, 
including  the  mixing  of  paints)  are  able  to  put  a  good  finish  on 


6iO  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

painting  work,  and  of  men  who  are  in  all  ways  dependable  —  but 
it  is  said,  also,  that  the  learner,  so  far  as  the  actual  technique  of 
the  trade  is  concerned,  could  master  all  that  is  necessary  for  most 
work  at  the  present  time  in  vogue  in  a  year. 

It  is  probable  that  character  is  relatively  an  especially  valuable 
asset  in  this  trade. 

For  the  boy,  however,  the  trade  is  not  very  healthy,  and  this 
fact,  combined  with  its  precariousness  and  the  numerous  channels 
of  entry  from  the  ranks  of  laborers  or  even  from  outside  the  build- 
ing trades  altogether,  makes  it  an  occupation  of  doubtful  attractive- 
ness. The  demand,  altered  somewhat  in  character,  is  likely  to  be 
maintained  and  even  to  increase  in  volume,  but  the  other  consider- 
ations mentioned  still  leave  the  general  economic  position  of  the 
trade  somewhat  insecure. 

Sign  writing  is  a  subsidiary  branch  of  the  trade  of  minor  im- 
portance, but  is  comparatively  stable  in  character. 

Carpentry  and  joinery.  Few  branches  of  the  building  trades 
are  being  more  affected  by  changes  that  are  in  progress,  to  some 
of  which  reference  has  been  already  made,  than  are  those  of  the 
carpenter  and  joiner.  As  workers  in  wood  the  position  of  these 
is  apt  to  be  assailed  by  every  increase  in  the  demand  for  or  obli- 
gation to  provide  fireproof  constructions,  and  the  use  of  iron  and 
steel,  concrete,  and  terra  cotta  has  been  certainly  hastened  by  this 
consideration.  On  the  buildings  the  chief  ways  in  which  the  de- 
mand for  the  carpenter  has  been  weakened  has  been  through  the 
use  of  metal  girders  and  concrete,  either  for  floors  or  roofs,  and 
of  artificial  stone  and  of  ironwork  for  staircases,  while  iron  doors 
and  other  metal  fitments,  formerly  of  wood,  are  threatened.  In 
connection  with  the  use  of  reenforced  concrete,  on  which  a  few 
smiths  and  more  "concreters"  (the  latter  a  special  class  of  laborer 
that  is  being  created)  are  mainly  employed,  a  compensating  demand 
of  some  importance  for  the  carpenter  makes  itself  felt  in  the  con- 
struction of  the  wooden  molds,  or  "shuttering,"  which  are  required 
for  the  concrete.  But  when  all  is  said,  the  modern  substitutes  for 
timber  are  weakening  the  demand  for  the  carpenter,  especially  in 
much  of  the  heavier  woodwork  formerly  used  on  certain  classes  of 
large  buildings. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     611 

In  joinery  by  far  the  most  important  influence  is  the  extending 
use  of  machine-made  joinery  and  the  increasing  precision  of  the 
machines  themselves ;  but  in  this  case,  although  the  character  of 
much  of  the  work  in  the  shops  is  being  altered  very  fundamentally 
and  the  demand  for  the  fully  qualified  joiner  being  seriously  weak- 
ened, there  is,  again,  a  twofold  compensating  influence  : 

1.  More  joinery,  including  for  instance  more  paneling,  is  apt 

to  be  included  in  the  specifications,  while  much  of  the 
joinery  also  tends  to  be  more  elaborate  in  character ;  and 

2.  Hardwood,,  which  can  be  worked  by  the  machines  almost 

as  easily  as  the  softer  varieties,  is  apt  to  be  more  widely 
used.  From  both  these  causes  some  compensation  is 
found,  more  work,  both  in  hand  finishing  and  especially 
in  fixing,  being  made  for  the  joiner.  These  twofold  in- 
fluences— on  the  one  hand  an  extended  use  of  machinery 
and  on  the  other  an  increasing  demand  —  apply  also  to 
wooden  shop-fittings  and  cases,  for  which  London  firms 
have  a  high  reputation. 

Wood  carving,  only  in  the  cruder  surface-cutting  forms  of  which 
can  machinery  be  used,  is  not  unlikely  to  be  stimulated  by  the 
increasing  extent  to  which  other  forms  of  woodwork  can  be  done 
by  machinery.  The  demand  for  wood  carving  is  mainly  determined 
by  taste  and  by  prosperity ;  but,  given  prosperity,  tne  demand  for 
the  wood  carver  is  likely  to  increase  and  one  leading  London  builder 
has  singled  this  out  as  the  branch  of  the  trade  in  which  there  was 
not  only  a  real  shortage  but  also  at  the  moment  most  scope. 

Plumbing.  Two  main  considerations  demand  notice  in  connec- 
tion with  this  trade,  one  pointing  to  a  weakening  and  the  other  to 
a  strengthening  of  its  position. 

The  former  effect  is  being  brought  about  by  the  extending  use 
of  iron,  instead  of  lead,  piping,  bringing  the  fitter  into  direct 
competition,  and  of  ready-made  plumbers'  fittings,  while  a  some- 
what similar  tendency  accompanies  the  substitution  of  concrete 
or  asphalt  for  the  older  type  of  flat  roofing  with  its  covering 
of  lead. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  greater  volume  of  sanitary  work  required 
and  the  higher  standard  of  plumbing  that,  partly  in  the  interests 


612  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

of  public  convenience  but  mainly  in  that  of  the  public  health,  is 
demanded  point  to  a  more  active  demand  for  the  services  of  the 
plumber.1 

Thus,  while  the  aggregate  demand  for  his  work  is  probably 
tending  to  diminish  in  quantity,  the  demand  for  proficiency  is 
increasing  and,  in  consequence,  the  openings  for  fully  trained  and 
competent  men.  It  may  be  noted  that  the  plumber,  as  such,  claims 
work  on  iron  piping  in  connection  with  sanitary  work  and  with  the 
distribution  of  cold  water.  To  hot-water  fitting  the  plumber  makes 
no  claim  as  of  right,  but,  receiving  his  somewhat  higher  rate  of 
pay,  competes  with  the  hot-water  fitter  on  the  ordinary  industrial 
basis  of  comparative  efficiency,  and  on  this  basis  a  certain  amount 
of  this  work  is  being  won  back. 

Electrical  working.  The  electrical  industry  is  concerned  with 
all  work  on  current-carrying  apparatus  and  is  thus  differentiated 
from  mechanical  engineering,  which  in  some  of  its  branches  is 
concerned  with  the  making  of  such  apparatus.  The  principal 
services  which  the  electrical  workers  attached  to  the  building 
trades  render  are  those  of  installation  and  repair,  chiefly  in  con- 
nection with  electrical  lighting.  Some  of  the  tasks  thus  involved 
are  simple  in  character,  and  a  considerable  number  of  men  and 
young  men  are  engaged  on  them  with  no  knowledge  of  the  science 
of  their  calling.  The  minimum  of  manual  skill  required  is,  it  is 
true,  not  difficult  to  acquire,  but  competent  men  in  this  trade  must 
master  at  least  its  rudimentary  principles.  Thus,  although  a  some- 
what undiscriminating  movement  into  the  trade  has  reached  large 
proportions,  its  importance  and  the  scope  which  it  offers  for  the 
utilization  of  special  knowledge  still  leave  it  as  one  of  the  expand- 
ing and  promising  subsidiary  branches  of  the  building  trades. 

Structural  ironworking.  Structural  ironworkers  are  really  smiths 
or  fitters  engaged  upon  a  particular  branch  of  constructional  work 
that  is  unsuited  for  the  employment  of  boys  and  upon  which  they 
are  in  practice  not  engaged. 


l  In  this  connection  a  new  process  may  be  noted  that  dispenses  with  the  usual  wiped 
joint  and  for  which  other  advantages  are  claimed  in  addition  to  those  of  economy  in  time 
and  material.  If  widely  adopted,  the  process  will  effect  a  very  considerable  alteration  in 
plumbing  practice. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     613 

Other  branches.  Various  other  branches  of  the  building  trades 
are  not  so  well  defined  as  most  of  those  to  which  reference  has 
been  already  made,  and  among  these  may  be  mentioned  hot-water 
fitting,  gas  fitting,  paper  hanging,  and  glazing,  the  two  last  being 
often  executed  by  painters. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  minor  and  inferior  crafts  are  apt  to  be 
specialized,  such  as  parquet  flooring  and  stone  and  marble  mosaic 
work.  In  neither  of  these,  except  in  the  more  artistic  forms  of 
mosaic  work,  is  there  much  scope  for  training.  Certain  occupa- 
tions, again,  overlap  with  the  metal  trades  and  have  no  exclusive 
connection  with  building,  such  as  zinc  workers,  coppersmiths, 
smiths  and  fitters  other  than  those  mentioned  above,  and  art- 
metal  workers.  Much  smiths'  work  is  a  provincial  rather  than 
a  London  industry,  including  practically  the  whole  of  the  metal 
work  used  in  the  reinforcement  of  concrete. 

C.  A  Period  of  Transition 

In  connection  with  various  branches  of  the  building  trade,  notably 
bricklayers,  carpenters,  and  plasterers  on  solid  work,  the  importance 
of  the  use  of  new  materials  and  of  new  combinations  of  materials 
in  building  construction  has  been  mentioned,  but  attention  has 
been  drawn  to  some  of  the  ways  in  which  the  displacement  of 
labor  in  one  direction  has  been  accompanied  by  an  increased  de- 
mand elsewhere,  and  by  the  ways  in  which  labor  actually  displaced 
is  itself  sometimes  compensated  or  partly  compensated  by  a  de- 
mand for  new  services.  It  may  be  noted,  however,  that  the  changes 
in  building  methods  to  which  reference  has  been  made  are  in  few 
cases  entirely  modern,  and  the  long  period  during  which  both 
metal  and  concrete  have  to  some  extent  been  used  in  constructive 
work  is  a  reminder  of  the  general  truth  that  changes  in  building 
methods  nearly  always  come  about  very  gradually.  Partial  explana- 
tions of  this  are  found  in  the  fact  that  architects  do  not  readily 
specify  for  new  materials  unless  they  are  assured  not  only  that 
they  are  of  proved  advantage  over  the  old  but  also  that  contractors 
(who,  like  the  architects,  are  chary  of  adopting  new  materials  and 
new  methods)  will  tender  at  a  sufficiently  low  figure ;  and  this,  the 


6 14  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

more  novel  the  material  and  processes  are  to  them,  the  less  likely 
they  are  to  do.  A  main  explanation  of  the  conservative  attitude 
tending  to  prevail  in  the  building  trades  is,  moreover,  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that,  apart  from  the  flimsiest  of  speculative  cottage 
building,  they  generally  operate  for  the  fairly  distant,  as  well  as 
for  the  more  immediate,  future.  This  consideration  is  of  special 
moment  in  connection  with  the  large  type  of  construction  that  so 
far  has  been  found  most  suitable  for  the  use  of  concrete,  since, 
in  order  to  insure  its  durability  when  dependent  upon  the  metal 
reinforcements,  exceptional  care  has  to  be  exercised  alike  in  the 
selection  of  materials  and  in  all  subsequent  processes.  This  is 
especially  the  case  when  surfaces  are  exposed  to  the  action  of 
water  or  damp  air,  in  order  that  all  possible  safeguards  may  be 
taken  against  the  risks  of  a  gradual  rusting  of  the  metal  inside  its 
concrete  covering  and  of  a  perhaps  remote,  but  eventual,  collapse. 

Thus,  for  various  reasons,  no  changes  of  fundamental  impor- 
tance leading  to  an  extensive  displacement  of  labor  are  likely  to 
occur  rapidly.  The  present  is,  however,  a  time  of  transitional  devel- 
opment in  the  building  trades,  and  although  there  may  be  no  great 
likelihood  of  a  sudden  and  extensive  loss  of  their  employment  by 
any  class  of  journeyman,  even  a  slow  weakening  of  their  positions 
would  greatly  affect  and  greatly  complicate  the  problem  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  juvenile.  To  the  latter  it  will  make  all  the 
difference  in  ten  or  twenty  years'  time  whether  demand  has  been 
tending  to  diminish  in  the  trade  of  his  choice  even  at  the  rate  of 
only  i  or  2  per  cent  per  annum,  or  has  been  tending  to  increase 
at  a  similar  rate,  or  even  to  remain  stationary ;  and  even  if,  after 
a  few  years,  the  juvenile  should  be  able  to  insure  his  footing  in  a 
declining  trade,  it  is  apt  to  be  at  the  cost  of  the  journeyman  of 
to-day,  who  may  find  himself  prematurely  displaced.  It  is  in  con- 
nection with  this  question  as  to  whether  they  do  or  do  not  offer 
reasonable  chances  of  an  assured  industrial  future  that  several 
branches  of  the  building  trades  create  a  problem  of  such  great 
perplexity. 

It  may  be  noted,  however,  that  when  any  new  process  or  mate- 
rial is  used  great  advantages  are  looked  for,  either  in  a  direct  or 
indirect  saving  in  the  cost  of  construction  or  in  increased  safety 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     615 

from  fire,  in  a  greater  durability,  in  economy  of  space,  or  it  may 
be  in  greater  beauty.  Should,  therefore,  one  or  more  of  these 
advantages  be  secured  at  any  time  in  any  markedly  increased  way, 
it  is  a  fair  presumption  that  the  demand  for  new  building  construc- 
tion would  respond,  and  the  building  and  rebuilding  (for  which  there 
is  great  scope  in  London)  be  stimulated.  It  is,  as  has  been  indi- 
cated, improbable  that  any  such  considerable  changes  in  process, 
and  thus  in  demand,  will  occur  at  all  speedily ;  and  it  is  also  true 
that,  should  this  happen,  the  position  of  some  grades,  perhaps 
bricklayers  or  carpenters,  would  not  improbably  be  still  further 
relatively  weakened.  But,  as  has  been  seen,  other  branches  might 
gain,  and  it  is  desirable  to  emphasize  this  general  fact  that,  although 
any  given  change  of  process  may  tend  to  weaken  the  economic 
position  of  some  particular  class  of  operative,  it  generally  tends 
not  only  to  represent,  at  any  rate  as  indicated  by  the  demand  of 
a  period,  a  gain  to  the  community,  but  not  infrequently  to  benefit 
directly  some  other  section  or  sections  of  wage  earners.  The  other 
point  to  which  reference  has  been  also  made  is  of  perhaps  even 
greater  significance,  namely,  the  latent  but  potential  demand  for 
new  buildings  that  exists  in  a  great  and  wealthy  community  such 
as  London,  which,  although  to  a  great  extent  built  over,  contains 
such  large  numbers  of  ill-constructed  dwellings,  offices,  and  shops. 
There  is  special  need  to  give  due  weight  to  such  a  consideration 
as  the  foregoing  in  estimating  the  prospects  that  seem  to  be 
afforded  by  the  building  trades  because  of  the  normal  tendency 
of  the  mind  to  exaggerate  the  permanency  of  existing  buildings 
and  thus  not  to  give  their  proper  importance  to  the  forces  that 
are  making  and  may  make  for  reconstruction. 

PARTICULARS  RESPECTING  DIFFERENT  OCCUPATIONS 

On  the  following  pages  various  salient  particulars  have  been 
summarized  with  regard  to  the  principal  branches  of  the  building 
trades,  and  a  rough  and  tentative  attempt  has  been  also  made  to 
classify  the  different  occupations  from  the  point  of  view  of  their 
advantageousness,  mainly  with  reference  to  the  prospects  which 
they  seem  to  offer  as  callings  for  London  boys. 


616  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  paragraphs  that  follow  immediately  refer  to  matters  con- 
cerning which  the  same  particulars  apply  to  several  or  all  branches. 

Term  of  engagement.  Except  for  boys  on  a  weekly  wage,  one 
hour's  notice  on  either  side  is  the  general  rule. 

The  working  week.  A  working  week  of  fifty  hours  for  summer 
(thirty-nine  weeks)  and  forty-four  hours  for  winter  (thirteen  weeks 
from  the  second  Monday  in  November)  is  usual. 

Hours :  summer.  From  Monday  to  Friday,  6.30  to  8  ;  8.30  to 
12  noon;  I  to  5.  Saturdays,  6.30  to  8  A.M.;  8.30  to  12  noon. 
Winter.  Monday  to  Friday,  8  to  12  noon  ;  12.30  P.M.  to  4.30  P.M. 
Saturdays,  8  to  12  noon. 

In  the  shops  the  hours  are  as  above,  with  one  hour  for  dinner 
in  winter,  the  leaving-off  time  being  5  P.M.  instead  of  4.30. 

The  above  conditions  apply  to  bricklayers,  carpenters,  and 
joiners,  stonemasons  and  plasterers,  and,  with  slight  variations,  to 
plumbers,  general  smiths  and  fitters,  and  wood-cutting  machinists. 
The  most  important  standing  difference  is  that  plumbers  have  one 
hour  for  dinner  throughout  the  winter. 

Provision  for  meals.  It  is  agreed  that  employers  shall  provide, 
where  practicable  and  reasonable,  a  suitable  place  for  the  workmen 
to  have  their  meals  on  the  works,  with  a  laborer  to  assist  in  pre- 
paring them,  and  shall  open  the  same  one  hour  before  starting 
time  in  winter,  with  similar  attendance. 

Provision  in  accordance  with  this  general  understanding  appears 
to  be  usually  made. 

Holidays.  The  most  usual  holidays  are  Bank  holidays  with,  as 
a  rule,  the  following  day  —  a  relic,  as  one  employer  described  it, 
"  of  days  when  drinking  was  more  rife."  When  occasionally 
apprentices  are  taken,  an  additional  holiday  of  one  or  two  weeks 
is  sometimes  given,  generally  with  pay. 

Periods  of  probation.  When  boys  are  occasionally  taken  on  from 
the  outside  with  a  view  to  apprenticeship,  or  even  definitely  as 
learners  from  the  outset,  there  is  generally  a  period  of  trial,  rang- 
ing from  a  fortnight  to  three  months,  the  most  usual  being  one 
month.  An  informal  period  of  probation  is  under  existing  con- 
ditions much  more  frequent,  boys  being  often  employed  on  in- 
definite nontechnical  work  for  a  year  or  so  to  begin  with ;  those 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     617 

who  by  their  behavior  have  then  proved  themselves  "  likely  boys  " 
being  sometimes  selected  for  actual  craft  training  at  the  bench  or 
in  the  yard.  Throughout  every  branch  of  the  trade  formal  appren- 
ticeship is  the  exception. 

Premium.  Premiums  average  from  nothing  to  £$o.  The  larger 
amounts  may  be  accompanied  by  special  training  and  the  assump- 
tion of  a  special  responsibility  for  the  boy,  but,  without  any  guar- 
antee that  this  will  follow,  are  mainly  paid  to  the  occasional  firms 
of  good  standing  that  are  willing  to  take  one  or  more  apprentices 
and  by  custom  have  put  their  premium  at  a  high  figure.  In  such 
cases  an  asset  of  value  in  after  life  is,  however,  generally  obtained, 
a  genuine  apprenticeship  passed  under  certain  firms  being  an  initial 
guarantee  of  competency. 

The  higher  premiums  are  rarely  paid  by  parents  themselves, 
and,  whatever  the  scale  of  payments  adopted,  it  is  generally 
lower  in  the  case  of  the  boys  who  are  sons  of  employees  of  the 
apprenticing  firm. 

It  is  probable  that  the  scale  of  premiums,  when  these  are  paid 
at  all,  is  somewhat  inflated  owing  to  the  funds  and  endowments 
available  in  London  for  apprenticeship  purposes,  and  it  appears 
to  be  not  infrequently  the  case  that  boys  who  are  inmates  of  chari- 
table institutions  of  one  kind  or  another  obtain  an  advantage  as 
regards  the  chance  of  being  apprenticed  that  is  sometimes  dis- 
heartening to  parents  who  have  brought  their  own  children  up. 
Boys  who  have  undergone  some  special  handicap  in  life  demand, 
it  is  true,  some  special  backing ;  but  a  system  that  makes  it  pos- 
sible for  a  parent  to  feel,  as  one  man  who  had  tried  unsuccessfully 
to  place  his  son  expressed  it,  that  "  the  best  way  to  get  a  boy  ap- 
prenticed is  to  neglect  him  "  is  clearly  not  entirely  satisfactory. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  extent  to 
which  boys  are  obtained  "through  charities"  is  partly  explained 
by  the  ease  with  which  the  formal  bond  can  be  arranged  with 
these  agencies  and  by  their  command  of  or  access  to  the  neces- 
sary funds,  as  contrasted  with  the  frequent  tendency  of  parents 
themselves,  as  also  of  their  children,  to  shrink  from  the  more 
formal  tie  of  apprenticeship  even  when  this  is  occasionally  opened 
to  them. 


618  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Attendance  at  classes.  In  several  branches  of  the  trade,  but 
especially  as  regards  joiners,  plumbers,  electrical  workers,  some 
branches  of  plastering  and  decorative  design,  attendance  at  trade 
classes  is  approved  by  many  employers  ;  but  the  practice  of  giving 
time  off  during  the  day  for  attendance  thereat  is  very  rarely  either 
granted  or,  under  existing  conditions,  required. 

District  notes.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  entry  of  the  boy 
into  any  branch  of  the  building  trades  is  likely  to  be  most  difficult 
in  those  parts  of  London  where  working  room  is  most  valuable, 
as  in  the  City  of  London  ;  or  in  firms  whose  work  is  most  uni- 
formly of  the  highest  grade,  as  in  the  case  of  decorators  with  an 
exclusively  West  End  connection. 

Accidents.  The  deaths  attributed  to  building  operations  in 
London  during  1908  numbered  fifty-one,  or  somewhat  fewer  than 
those  caused  by  railways,  and  sevenfold  less  than  those  caused  by 
horses  and  vehicles.  It  is  only  in  comparison  with  occupations 
that  are  practically  free  from  danger  to  life  that  the  building  trades, 
although  including  within  their  scope  many  operations  involving 
considerable  risk,  can  as  a  group  be  classed  as  dangerous. 

The  eye  is  liable  to  injury  in  those  occupations  involving  the 
cutting  of  stone  ;  that  is,  in  bricklaying  and  masonry. 

A  few  particulars  are  added  with  reference  to  individual  occu- 
pations. 

Bricklayers 

Wages.  A  starting  wage  for  a  boy  from  fifteen  to  sixteen  years 
of  age  ranges  from  5  s.  to  8  s.  per  week,  but  the  more  usual  appears 
to  be  6s.  Customary  finishing  wages  for  apprentices,  reached  in 
from  four  to  five  years,  may  be  put  at  i8s.  per  week.  The  rate 
for  journeymen  is  io|-d.  per  hour,  unless  they  are  engaged  on 
work  demanding  special  skill  or  responsibility,  when  it  may  be 
from  id.  to  i£d.  per  hour  higher. 

Age  of  entry.  The  usual  age  of  entry  for  boys  is  from  fifteen 
to  sixteen. 

Special  qualifications.  Great  muscular  strength  is  not  required, 
but  a  good  constitution  is  necessary,  much  of  the  work  being 
exposed.  The  higher  branches  of  the  trade  require  good  natural 
abilities. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     619 

Disadvantages.  The  trade  is  seasonal  and  more  than  usually 
affected  by  the  weather.  Places  of  work  shift,  and  time  is  thus  apt 
to  be  lost  and  expense  incurred.  The  number  entering  the  trade 
during  the  decade  1891-1901  was  very  large,  and  the  potential 
provincial  supply  of  labor  is  also  large,  many  entering  the  trade  in 
London  as  improvers.  London  training  can  be  excellent,  but  it  is 
difficult  to  get  all-round  experience  in  the  metropolis,  which  in 
this,  as  in  some  other  branches  of  the  building  trades,  is  better 
as  a  finishing  school  than  as  a  training  ground. 

Advantages.    The  trade  is  fairly  well  organized,  and  a  large 
aggregate  demand  is  still  maintained. 
General  Classification 

1.  As  regards  health.    (See  under  Masonry?) 

2.  Economic.    The  present  demand  for  the  ordinary  bricklayer, 
able  only  to  execute  the  more  straightforward  work,  is  inactive, 
and  the  expansion  of  the  demand  for  this  class  of  man  in  the 
future  is  uncertain. 

General  prospects  are  moderate 1  save  for  the  first-class  mechanic, 
for  whom,  especially  if  qualified  to  take  the  position  of  leading 
hand  or  foreman,  they  are  good. 

Stonemasons 

Wages.  The  starting  wage  ranges  from  45.  to  8s.,  and  the 
finishing  wage  for  apprentices,  reached  in  from  four  to  five  years, 
is  from  155.  to  2 is.  The  trade-union  rate  of  wages  is  ic>ld.  per 
hour,  and  for  fixing,  ii^d.  per  hour. 

Age  of  entry.  The  usual  age  of  entry  is  from  fifteen  to  sixteen, 
and,  considerable  strength  being  required,  sixteen  appears  to  be 
the  better  age. 

Special  qualifications.  Muscular  strength  and,  even  under  mod- 
ern conditions,  the  moral  qualities  of  patience  and  persistence. 
(See  also  under  Bricklaying^} 

Disadvantages.  As  in  the  case  of  bricklaying,  the  fixing  work 
is  more  than  usually  affected  by  the  weather ;  the  places  of  work 
shift ;  and  the  provincial  supply  of  labor  is  large.  Stonecutting 
is  being  especially  affected  by  the  use  of  machinery,  and  great 

1  In  this  section  the  classification  "  good,"  "  fair,"  "  moderate,"  and  "  bad  "  is  used. 


620  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

quantities  of  the  stone  fixed  in  London  have  been  prepared  at 
the  quarries. 

General  Classification 

1.  As  regards  health.    Masons'  phthisis  is  a  recognized  com- 
plaint, and  both  masons  and  bricklayers  are  specially  liable,  as 
following  dusty  occupations,  to  phthisis  and  to  diseases  of  the  re- 
spiratory system.  Masons,  classed  with  bricklayers  and  "builders" 
in  the  returns  (England  and  Wales)  of  the  Registrar-General  of 
occupational  mortality  of  males  aged  twenty-five  to  sixty-five,  form, 
however,  a  group  with  a  death  rate  about  10  per  cent  lower  than 
the  average  for  all  occupations,  and  the  special  risk  of  phthisis  does 
not  leave  this  group,  therefore,  as  a  whole,  an  unhealthy  occupation. 
But  it  should  not  be  entered  by  boys  with  weak  chests.  The  chances 
of  life  of  those  engaged  in  it  are  sharing  in  the  widespread  im- 
provement in  this  respect. 

2.  Economic.    Prospects  moderate. 

Marble  Masons 

Wages.  The  starting  wage  is  from  4  s.  to  8  s.,  and  the  ultimate 
wage  for  apprentices  at  the  end  of  five  years  should  be  not  less 
than  20  s.  Adult  wages  are  often  somewhat  lower  than  those  of 
stonemasons,  ranging  from  8^d.  per  hour  upwards. 

Usual  age  of  entry.    From  fifteen  to  sixteen. 

Special  qualifications.  In  every  branch  of  the  building  trades 
obedience  and  diligence,  coupled  with  the  ability  and  willingness 
to  do  what  one  is  told,  rank  at  the  outset  as  the  elementary  indus- 
trial virtues.  But  for  a  young  marble  mason  who  is  going  to 
succeed  at  his  calling,  and  qualify  at  least  as  a  leading  hand,  a 
sense  of  color  is  a  special  qualification  of  value. 

Disadvantages.  In  addition  to  the  extending  use  of  machinery 
the  distinctive  disadvantage,  which  is  said,  however,  not  as  yet  to 
have  reached  an  acute  stage,  is  the  extent  to  which  marble  used 
in  London  has  been  prepared  abroad. 

General  Classification 

1.  As  regards  health.    (Cf.  Masonry?) 

2.  Economic.    Prospects  fair. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     621 

Plasterers 

Wages.  Starting  wages  for  boys  range  from  5  s.  to  7  s.,  and  the 
ultimate  wage  for  apprentices,  generally  reached  in  five  years,  may 
be  put  at  from  155.  to  20  s.  per  week,  but  the  more  common  class 
of  improvers  is  paid  6d.  and  /d.  per  hour.  The  trade-union  rate 
for  adult  labor  is  1 1  d.  per  hour. 

Age  of  entry.  The  usual  age  at  which  the  boys  enter  the  trade 
is  from  fourteen  to  sixteen. 

Special  qualifications.  For  most  branches  of  the  trade  a  good 
constitution  is  necessary,  much  of  the  work  being  damp  and 
often  done  under  exposed  conditions.  Fixing  fibrous  plasterwork 
is  sometimes  heavy  work,  and  skillful  manipulation  as  well  as 
strength  are  apt  to  be  required.  More  distinctive  qualifications 
are  now  concerned  rather  with  the  earlier  processes  of  the  work 
done  in  the  shops,  and  may  involve,  according  to  the  scale 
and  character  of  the  work  attempted,  a  knowledge  of  drawing 
and  design. 

Disadvantages.  Special  care  should  still  be  exercised  so  as  to 
select  a  foreman  or  employer  under  whom  the  tone  is  satisfactory. 
The  work  is  dirty. 

Advantages.  The  increasing  and  very  varied  use  that  is  being 
made  of  plasterwork  and  the  scope  offered  by  the  trade  are  two 
of  its  marked  features.  Labor  is  drawn  from  the  provinces  to  a 
less  extent  than  in  the  case  of  bricklayers,  masons,  and  carpenters, 
and  as  regards  its  products  the  trade  is  practically  free  from  all 
forms  of  outside  competition,  both  provincial  and  foreign. 

General  Classification 

1.  As  regards  health.    Classed  with  paper  hangers  and  white- 
washers,  the  comparative  mortality  of  the  group  thus  composed 
is  very  slightly  (i  per  cent)  higher  than  the  standard  of  all  occu- 
pied males  in  England  and  Wales  aged  twenty-five  to  sixty-five. 
The  mortality  from  alcoholism  and  liver  complaints,  from  phthisis, 
and  respiratory  diseases  are  among  the  cases  in  which  the  standard 
rate  is  slightly  exceeded. 

2.  Economic.    Prospects  good. 


622  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Carpenters  and  Joiners 

Wages.  The  starting  weekly  wage  for  boys  may  range  from  5  s. 
to  8s.,  and  the  ultimate  wage  of  apprentices,  usually  reached  in 
four  or  five  years,  ranges  from  about  i6s.  to  20  s.  A  common 
wage  as  improvers  is  from  6d.  to  /d.  per  hour.  The  trade-union 
rate  for  journeymen  is  io|  d.  per  hour. 

Age  of  entry.  The  usual  age  at  which  boys  enter  the  trade  is 
from  fourteen  to  sixteen,  a  larger  proportion  entering  at  fourteen 
and  fifteen  than  in  some  of  the  branches  in  which  the  work  is 
heavier  and  in  which  there  is  less  opportunity  for  boys  to  start 
by  doing  miscellaneous  nontechnical  work. 

Special  qualifications.  As  in  most  other  branches  of  the  build- 
ing trades,  for  its  average  members  no  special  qualifications  are 
necessary,  and  a  general  qualification,  to  the  effect  that  a  boy  has 
to  be  useful  to  the  man  he  is  working  with,  is  of  wide  application. 
But  in  this  trade  a  knowledge  of  drawing  and  ability  to  interpret 
drawings,  a  liking  for  tools,  with  a  natural  handiness  in  their  use, 
are  special  advantages  ;  and  for  those  boys  who  are  competent  to 
qualify  as  leading  hands  or  foremen  there  is  more  than  the  aver- 
age scope  for  the  exercise  of  special  gifts,  not  only  such  as  the 
mastery  of  the  technical  requirements  of  the  trade,  but  for  the 
moral  qualities  of  tact,  patience,  and  the  capacity  to  manage  men. 
Most  of  the  positions  as  foremen  of  works  come  ultimately  to 
members  of  this  particular  occupation.  In  the  machine  shops 
quickness  in  the  manipulation  of  the  material  rather  than  in  that 
of  tools  is  especially  useful ;  but  the  best  use  of  machinery  will 
still  involve  a  knowledge  of  the  qualities  of  the  timber  that  is 
being  used.  ' 

Disadvantages.  The  substitution  of  machine  joinery  for  hand- 
work and  thus  the  tendency  for  the  inside  joiner  to  become  a  fitter 
rather  than  a  maker ;  the  unsuitability  of  wood  in  fireproof  con- 
structions ;  the  partial  displacement  of  the  carpenter  on  some 
classes  of  buildings  ;  the  general  superiority  of  the  provinces  as 
a  training  ground ;  the  cost  of  the  outfit  of  tools,  estimated  at 
from  about  ^3  to  ;£io  according  to  the  place  and  character  of 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     623 

the  work  undertaken  ; l  and  the  considerable  influx  into  the  trade 
during  the  decade  1891-1901. 

Advantages.  The  general  character  of  the  trade  and  the  clean 
and  wholesome  nature  of  the  material  upon  which  the  operative 
works ;  the  scope  for  initiative  and  the  relatively  greater  chance 
of  promotion  to  the  position  of  foreman  of  works ;  a  fairly  effec- 
tive organization  and  the  diminished  chance  of  irregular  entry 
into  the  trade  owing  to  the  necessity  of  having  an  outfit  of  tools  ; 
and  a  wider  provision  of  technical  classes  in  London  than  in  any 
other  branches  of  the  building  trades. 

General  Classification 

1.  As  regards  health.    These  trades,  ranking  as  the  healthiest 
in  the  building-trade  group,  have  a  mortality  rate  1 2  per  cent  below 
that  of  the  group  as  a  whole  and  18  per  cent  below  that  of  the 
standard  rate  for  all  classes  occupied  between  the  ages  of  twenty- 
five  and  sixty-five.    The  relative  immunity  from  alcoholism  and 
liver  disease,  respiratory  diseases,  and  accidents  is  marked,  and 
the  general  mortality  figure  between  the  above  ages,  like  that  of 
almost  all  other  groups,  is  tending  to  decline.  It  is  probable,  how- 
ever, that  employment  in  a  machine-joinery  shop  is  less  healthy 
than  in  other  shops,  owing  to  the  greater  prevalence  in  them  of 
dust ;  but  of  this  there  is  as  yet  no  statistical  proof. 

2.  Economic.    Prospects  seem  to  be  moderate,  except  for  the 
well-trained  and  competent  worker,  and  especially  for  higher-grade 
carpenters  able  to  deal  with  panelings  and  moldings  of  a  delicate 
character.  For  these,  prospects  are  good,  as  also  in  the  allied  trade 
of  wood  carvers,  but  the  demand  for  these  is  relatively  small. 

Painters  and  Decorators 

Wages.  The  starting  wage  of  boys  ranges  from  5  s.  to  8  s.,  and 
the  ultimate  wage  of  apprentices,  reached  in  about  five  years,  may 
be  put  at  about  i8s.  The  wages  of  journeymen  range  from  8^d. 

1  Under  modern  conditions  less  money  is  apt  to  be  spent  for  tools  than  formerly,  when 
a  complete  kit  might  come  to  £20  or  ^25. 


624  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

to  ioid.  per  hour,  or  in  the  case  of  trained  decorators,  to  some- 
thing over  this  maximum. 

Age  of  entry.  A  customary  age  at  which  boys  enter  the  trade 
is  about  fifteen,  but  for  plain  painting  a  feature  of  the  trade  is  the 
ease  with  which  it  can  be  entered  at  almost  any  age.  The  position 
is  reflected  in  the  saying  that  "  every  sailor  is  a  painter." 

Special  qualifications.  For  plain  painting  no  special  qualifications 
are  required,  but  for  decorative  interior  work  they  range  upwards 
until  the  operative  becomes  merged  in  the  decorative  artist.  For  the 
high-grade  painter  ability  to  paint  freely  in  the  historic  styles  of  orna- 
ment and  an  appreciation  for  beauty  of  form  and  color  are  required. 

Disadvantages.  The  seasonal  character  of  the  trade  and  the 
indefiniteness  of  its  technical  qualifications  ;  the  consequent  ease 
with  which  the  lower  grades  of  the  trade  can  be  entered,  especially 
perhaps  as  regards  outside  painting ;  and  the  changes  of  fashion 
as  regards  styles,  increasing  a  normal  irregularity  of  demand. 

Advantages.  The  great  aggregate  demand  and  the  scope  in  its 
higher  branches  for  originality  of  treatment  and  for  the  play  of 
the  artistic  temperament. 

General  Classification 

1.  As  regards  health.    In  the  Registrar-General's  returns  of 
England  and  Wales  painters  are  classified  with  plumbers  and 
glaziers,  and  in  the  group  thus  formed  the  comparative  mortality 
figure  is  1 1  per  cent  above  the  standard  of  occupied  males  between 
the  ages  of  twenty-five  and  sixty-five.    The  excessive  mortality  is 
most  marked  under  the  headings  plumbism  and  diseases  of  the 
urinary  system.    The  mortality  from  alcoholism  and  liver  diseases 
is  low,  and  the  group  is  less  liable  than  the  average  to  fatal  acci- 
dents.   During  the  ten  years  from  1892  to  1902  the  general  mor- 
tality for  the  above  ages  declined  at  almost  every  stage  of  life,  but 
the  high  mortality  from  plumbism  and  Bright's  disease  did  not  fall. 

2.  Economic.    Excepting  for  those  who  are  well  trained  and 
exceptionally  qualified  for  the  trade,  prospects  are  moderate  and 
the  standing  drawback  of  the  trade  is  its  normally  seasonal  char- 
acter.   In  the  subsidiary  occupation  of  sign  writing  the  merit  of 
its  comparative  stability  may  be  noted. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     625 

Plumbers 

Wages.  The  starting  wage  is  from  5  s.  to  8s.  per  week,  and  the 
ultimate  wage  for  apprentices,  usually  reached  in  five  years,  may 
be  put  at  from  143.  to  i8s.  The  trade-union  rate  is  1 1  d.  per  hour. 
Many  youths  enter  the  trade  who  begin  as  mates  (or  laborers) 
attending  the  skilled  man,  and  learners  not  infrequently  rank  for 
a  time  as  improvers  at  6  d.  to  7  d.  an  hour.  Formal  apprenticeship, 
as  in  all  other  branches  of  the  building  trades,  is  quite  exceptional. 

Age  of  entry.  Those  who  enter  the  trade  as  boys  generally  do 
so  at  from  fifteen  to  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  the  character  of 
the  work  and  the  weight  of  the  tools  make  it  an  unsuitable  trade 
for  the  boy  to  enter  earlier. 

Disadvantages.  Some  displacement  of  plumbers  is  being  caused, 
mainly  by  the  use  of  materials  other  than  lead. 

Advantages.  Through  its  Registration  Council  this  trade  has 
a  completer  machinery  for  securing  some  degree  of  standardiza- 
tion than  any  other  ;  and  although  the  proportion  of  the  trade  that, 
either  as  masters  or  operatives,  does  register  is  small,  the  craft 
principle  recognized,  of  registration  under  a  body  representative  of 
both  sections  of  the  trade,  is  one  of  its  special  advantages. 

To  set  against  the  displacement  mentioned  above  is  the  great 
aggregate  demand  for  the  services  of  the  plumber  and,  as  affect- 
ing public  health,  the  high  standard  of  workmanship  that  is  often 
exacted. 

General  Classification 

1.  As  regards  health.    (Cf.  under  Painting?) 

2.  Economic.    Prospects  fair. 

Smiths  and  Fitters,  including  Gas  and  Hot-  Water  Fitters 

Wages.  Wages  of  apprentices  or  learners  range  from  2s.  6d. 
to  8s.,  and  the  usual  rate  is  from  5  s.  to  6s.  per  week.  An  ultimate 
wage  reached  in  from  four  to  five  years  may  be  put  at  from  125.  6d. 
to  a  guinea.  The  usual  adult  wage  is  from  9^d.  to  1 1  d.  per  hour. 

Age  of  entry.  The  usual  age  at  which  boys  enter  these  trades 
is  from  fifteen  to  sixteen. 


626  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Disadvantages.  The  increasing  volume  of  casting  diminishes 
the  demand  for  smiths,  while  the  greater  precision  in  this  process 
lessens  the  importance  of  the  fitter.  Gas-fitting,  except  possibly 
in  connection  with  heating  and  cooking,  is  in  itself  not  an  ex- 
panding trade. 

Advantages.  The  increasing  use  of  iron  and  steel  in  building, 
both  in  the  main  structures  and  in  various  minor  fitments,  increases 
the  demand  for  smiths  and  fitters.  A  rising  standard  of  demand 
for  baths  and  hot-water  supply  in  dwellings  increases  the  demand 
for  hot- water  fitters. 

General  Classification 

1 .  As  regards  health.    No  statistics  are  available  for  this  group 
of  occupations,  but  its  components  enjoy  average  conditions. 

2.  Economic.    Prospects  fair. 

Electrical  Workers 

Wages.  The  usual  starting  wage  for  boys  is  from  55.  to  6s. 
per  week,  and  a  rate  of  145.  to  153.  should  be  reached  in  three 
or  four  years.  For  journeymen  81  d.  per  hour  is  sometimes  paid, 
but  the  trade-union  rate  is  9^d.,  except  for  plumber  jointers,  for 
whom  it  is  1 1  d. 

Hours  of  labor.  The  working  week  recognized  by  the  trade 
union  is  one  of  fifty-three  hours,  but  fifty-four  hours  in  shops  is 
frequent.  On  buildings  the  usual  number  of  hours  is  fifty. 

Usual  age  of  entry.  For  those  who  enter  the  trade  as  boys, 
fifteen  is  a  common  age. 

Disadvantages.  The  indefiniteness  of  the  necessary  qualifications 
and  the  somewhat  chaotic  conditions  of  a  rapidly  expanding  trade. 

Advantages.  The  scope  offered  by  the  trade  for  a  high  degree 
of  efficiency ;  its  growth  ;  its  intrinsic  interest ;  and  the  facilities 
for  technical  training  provided  in  London. 

General  Classification 

1.  As  regards  health.    Something  above  the  average  standard. 

2.  Economic.    Prospects  for  trained  men  are  good,  and  for 
others  fair. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     627 


The  Personal  Elements  involved 

Out  of  431  returns  from  employers  in  the  building  trades  ob- 
tained for  the  purposes  of  the  present  inquiry  and  analyzed,  less 
than  half  included  any  boys.  In  different  occupations  the  pro- 
portion of  boys  to  adults  varies,  there  being  more  juveniles,  for 
instance,  among  joiners  and  plumbers  than  among  bricklayers  and 
masons ;  but  London  employers  in  the  building  and  allied  trades 
as  a  whole  absorb  far  less  than  their  proportionate  share  of 
boy  labor.1  The  chief  and  perhaps  the  only  exception  is  found 
in  the  case  of  plumbers. 

The  London  master  builder  falls  into  four  main  classes,  afford- 
ing a  rough  indication  of  the  direction  in  which  the  opportunities 
required  for  the  satisfactory  learning  of  a  trade  are  or  are  not 
likely  to  be  found.  The  classes  are  as  follows  : 

i.  The  builder  and  contractor  of  good  standing  mainly  or 
largely  engaged  on  new  contract  work. 

1  Apart  from  plumbers,  the  Census  enumeration  rarely  makes  a  comparison  possible,  save 
in  the  case  of  carpenters  and  joiners,  as  between  the  age  groups  in  the  building  trades  in 
London  and  in  the  provinces.  When  comparison  is  possible  the  figures  refer  in  respect  to  the 
earlier  periods  of  life  only  to  those  under  fifteen  years  of  age,  where  the  numbers  are  always 
small,  and  to  those  of  fifteen  and  under  twenty-five  years  of  age,  a  period  which,  for  London, 
includes,  for  most  occupations,  many  improvers  who  have  been  trained  in  the  provinces. 

The  age  period  for  which  a  comparison  would  be  most  instructive  would  be  that  between 
fifteen  and  under  twenty  years  of  age  —  that  is,  for  the  years  during  which  the  largest  num- 
bers are  learning  their  trade  and  when  the  migration  to  London  or  elsewhere,  although 
it  may  have  begun,  is  not  in  full  operation.  A  comparison  for  these  years  is,  however,  not 
available  from  the  published  returns. 

For  those  periods  with  which  comparison  is  possible  the  following  figures  are  given  by 
way  of  illustration : 

CARPENTERS  AND  JOINERS,  1901  — MALES 


TOWN 

ALL  AGES 
TOTAL 

UNDER  FIFTEEN 

FIFTEEN  AND  UNDER 
TWENTY-FIVE 

Number 

Per  Cent 
of  Total 

Number 

Per  Cent 
of  Total 

London  

32,934 
3,56o 

1,839 
1,620 
607 
1,481 

224 
69 

20 
20 
3 
32 

.68 

i-93 
i.  08 
1.23 

49 
2.16 

7,763 
1,186 

544 
55i 
185 
501    . 

23-5 
33-3 
29.5 

34-o 
30.6 

-  -  33-8     -. 

Leeds     

Bradford      

Leicester     

Lincoln  

Lincoln  (rural  districts)    .     . 

628  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

2.  The  builder  of  good  standing  mainly  engaged  on  the  work 

of  repairs  and  renewals.    This  class  will  include  the 
better  grades  of  jobbing  builders. 

3.  The  builder  and  contractor  mainly  engaged  on  new  work 

of  a  speculative  character. 

4.  Small  jobbing  builders. 

The  firms  most  likely  to  be  suitable  for  training  boys  will  fall 
almost  entirely  in  either  class  i  or  class  2  ;  but  the  firms  with  the 
largest  plant  or  those  undertaking  in  some  branches  of  the  trade 
the  highest  class  of  work  do  not  for  various  reasons  necessarily 
provide  the  best  or  most  hopeful  training  ground. 

Class  3,  rarely  found  in  the  county  of  London  north  of  the 
Thames,  because  of  the  comparative  exhaustion  there  of  vacant 
building  areas,  is  ruled  out  for  the  most  part,  partly  because  of  the 
character  of  much  of  the  work  undertaken  by  this  class  of  em- 
ployer and  of  the  conditions  under  which  it  is  executed.  In  class  4, 
again,  which  includes  a  very  large  number  of  employers,  those 
suitable  for  taking  apprentices  and  learners  are  exceptional,  mainly 
because  operations  are  apt  to  be  on  too  small  and  modest  a  scale 
to  provide  the  variety  and  continuity  necessary  for  satisfactory 
craft  training. 

In  special  branches  of  the  trade  many  employers  are  found,  the 
most  important  being  electric-lighting  firms,  master  masons,  master 
plasterers,  master  plumbers,  and  master  decorators. 

In  this  class  machine-joinery  shops  working  for  builders  may 
be  also  included. 

As  regards  standing  and  class  of  work  undertaken,  the  above, 
with  the  exception  of  the  builders'  joiners,  fall  into  classes  corre- 
sponding roughly  with  those  of  the  master  builders  themselves, 
and  their  suitability  as  regards  the  employment  of  juvenile  labor 
would  thus  involve  roughly  a  similar  discrimination. 

Apart  from  any  question  of  the  suitability  or  unsuitability  of 
any  class  of  firms  for  the  employment  of  boys,  or  the  attitude 
adopted  by  employers  towards  these,  the  most  important  general 
reasons  for  the  shortage  of  boys  in  the  London  building  trades 
are  found  in  the  character  of  much  of  the  work  and  the  prevailing 
rental  conditions. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     629 

The  rents  of  many  London  shops  and  yards  are  themselves  high, 
and  employers  are  thus  inclined  to  desire  that  space  and  bench 
room  should  be  occupied  in  as  far  as  possible  by  labor  that  is  at 
any  given  time  most  suited  to  the  work  in  hand.  Thus  the  learner, 
as  representing  relatively  inefficient  labor,  is  apt  on  this  account 
to  be  eliminated. 

Moreover,  in  the  case  of  new  work  the  sites,  and  in  that  of 
repairs,  renewals,  and  alterations  the  sites  and  existing  buildings 
combined,  are  also  apt  to  have  high  market  value,  and  while  out 
of  use  to  represent  to  an  exceptional  degree  the  locking  up  of 
capital  and  the  loss  of  convenience.  Building  work  in  London  is 
thus  not  only  apt  to  demand  a  high  standard  of  skill  but  excep- 
tional speed  in  its  execution,  and  on  this  score  again  the  scope 
for  the  learner  is  apt  to  be  unusually  restricted. 

In  this  connection  may  be  mentioned  the  degree  of  responsibility 
often  put  upon  the  foreman  engaged  on  contract  work  for  keeping 
down  costs  to  a  profitable  figure ;  and  since  the  foreman  is  often 
the  person  who  engages  the  labor  he  requires,  his  position  and 
duties  are  further  elements  that  tend  to  keep  the  boy  and  the 
learner  outside  as  representing  relatively  unremunerative  labor. 

The  floating  character  of  the  great  mass  of  labor  outside  the 
shops,  with  a  term  of  engagement  nominally  at  one  hour's  notice, 
and  often  practically  limited  to  something  less  than  that  for  which 
a  man's  particular  branch  of  the  trade  may  be  required  for  some 
individual  contract,  again  handicaps  the  learner,  whose  term  of 
service  should  as  an  elementary  condition  be  continuous. 

The  difficulty  of  the  juvenile  in  certain  trades,  notably  in  plas- 
tering, plumbing,  and  masonry,  has  also  been  increased  by  the 
tendency  in  recent  years  for  the  work  to  be  executed  by  subcon- 
tract and  for  the  master  builder  less  frequently  and  less  com- 
pletely than  before  to  maintain  a  permanent  inside  staff  in  his 
own  shops  or  yard.  Thus,  in  many  directions,  a  devolution  of 
responsibility  by  the  employer,  be  it  to  manager,  foreman,  or  sub- 
contractor, that  appears  to  secure  the  greatest  efficiency  of  the 
moment,  is  creating  conditions  that  weaken  seriously  those  ele- 
ments in  the  organization  of  the  trade  which  most  conduce  to  the 
revival  of  good  and  systematic  training  of  the  juveniles.  To  an 


630  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

unusual  degree  the  provinces  and  the  uncalculated  chances  of  the 
future  are  relied  upon  in  London  to  provide  for  the  labor  require- 
ments of  this  great  industry. 

There  are  thus  various  personal  motives  and  economic  condi- 
tions that  go  far  towards  explaining  the  common  view  adopted  with 
regard  to  boy  labor  which  finds  expression  in  the  reiterated  state- 
ment that  "only  adults  are  employed,"  not  infrequently  with  the 
further  admission  that  there  is  an  unwillingness  to  employ  labor 
of  any  other  kind.  There  are  many  exceptions,  of  course,  but  the 
above  reflects  a  very  usual  point  of  view. 

We  are  told,  for  example,  that  a  manager  "  constantly  refuses 
to  take  either  learners  or  apprentices."  The  reason  is  mentioned  : 
"  the  speed  with  which  their  contracts  have  to  be  executed  renders 
it  impracticable  for  either  foreman  or  workmen  to  spare  any  time 
in  training  boys." 

In  this  case,  however,  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  the  position 
adopted  is  admitted. 

"At  the  same  time,"  it  is  stated,  "  he  feels  there  is  a  necessity 
in  the  trade  generally  for  the  proper  training  of  boys,  there  being 
too  many  inefficient  workmen  at  the  present  time." 

How  boys  are  obtained.  Such  boys  as  are  at  present  employed 
are  obtained,  whether  as  apprentices  or  learners,  in  a  great  variety 
of  ways  ;  and  it  is  a  natural  result  of  the  comparatively  small  num- 
bers required  that  on  the  whole  the  existing  sources  of  actual 
supply  are  considered  fairly  adequate,  although  more  completely 
so  in  respect  of  quantity  than  of  quality.  These  sources  are  mainly 
as  follows,  and  may  be  divided,  on  the  one  hand,  into  those  which 
imply  a  personal  recommendation  or  introduction  of  some  descrip- 
tion, —  sometimes  without  the  intervention  of  any  organization,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  sons  of  employees,  and  sometimes  with,  as  when 
boys  are  obtained  through  a  school  or  polytechnic,  —  and,  on  the 
other,  into  those  which  are  apt  to  be  entirely  impersonal,  as  in 
the  case  of  advertisement. 

The  following  is  an  enumeration  of  the  various  channels  utilized  : 
i .  Involving  some  kind  of  personal  introduction,  through 

a.  Parents  in  the  trade,  whether  employees  or  others ; 

b.  The  recommendation  of  friends,  clients,  or  tenants. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     631 

2.  Involving  the  use  of  some  kind  of  organization,  as  when 

boys  are  obtained  through 

a.  Neighboring  schools  or  polytechnics  ; 

b.  Sunday  schools,  Bands  of  Hope,  Bible  classes,  Church 

Lads'  brigades,  etc.,  or  on  the  recommendation  of 
the  clergy ; 

c.  Apprenticeship  associations ; 

d.  City  companies  and  other  charities,  including  the 

Jewish  Board  of  Guardians ; 

e.  The  labor  exchanges  or,  as  is  occasionally  mentioned, 

through  a  trade-union  secretary. 

3.  Entirely  impersonal  channels,  as  through 

a.  Advertisement,  either  through  the  press  or  through 

a  notice  exposed  in  the  window ; 

b.  The  chance  personal  application  apt  to  result  from  the 

adoption  of  the  previous  method,  boys  being  fre- 
quently sent  out  by  their  parents  to  look  for  work. 

As  a  rule,  when  boys  are  taken  on  they  are  really  wanted ;  but 
the  general  attitude  of  employers  in  these  trades  with  regard  to 
boys  is  reflected  in  the  fact  that  they  are  also  not  infrequently 
taken  on  to  oblige  someone,  often  an  employee  or  client,  and  this 
form  of  quasi-economic  engagement  characteristic  of  a  trade  in 
which  boys  are  rather  at  a  discount  is  thus  deserving  of  notice. 

On  the  whole  the  existing  methods  are,  as  stated,  considered, 
if  not  satisfactory,  adequate  or  fairly  adequate,  and  under  existing 
conditions  an  excess  of  applications  is  frequently  mentioned. 

Many  of  these  methods  are,  it  may  be  noted,  not  only  intrinsically 
satisfactory  but  also  inevitable,  and  even  their  variety  may  be  not 
without  its  advantages.  Thus  the  practical  problem  of  the  moment 
is  not  so  much  to  introduce  a  uniform  method  of  placing  and  train- 
ing boys  as  to  improve  existing  machinery,  and  as  far  as  possible 
to  provide  such  guidance  and  means  of  coordination  as  will  mini- 
mize the  risk  in  the  future  of  an  ignorant  and  unbalanced  move- 
ment into  such  occupations  as  may  seem  (and,  indeed,  may  be  at 
any  moment)  advantageous,  but  the  character  of  which  is  easily 
and  quickly  weakened  by  an  uninformed  drift  into  them,  such  as 
characterized  the  movement  into  the  building  trades  during  the 


632  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

closing  years  of  last  century,  and,  to  some  extent,  the  movement 
into  the  electrical  industry  more  recently. 

The  greatest  defect  consciously  recognized  by  the  better  class 
of  employers  in  some  of  the  present  methods  of  finding  and 
engaging  boys  is,  however,  the  ignorance  in  which  they  are  apt 
to  be  left,  if  not  as  to  the  boy's  immediate  antecedents,  as  to  his 
real  personal  record. 

It  is  true  that  occasionally  a  reputable  employer  may  prefer  to 
rely  on  his  own  judgment  and  experience  in  getting  this  knowledge, 
and  to  maintain  that  comparatively  free  hand  in  dismissing  or  re- 
taining the  boy  which  is  possessed  when  he  comes  without  any 
kind  of  introduction  or  outside  recognition  whatever. 

But  this  attitude  is  more  exceptional,  and,  on  the  whole,  with  a 
good  deal  of  indifference  on  the  question,  those  methods  of  secur- 
ing boys  are  preferred  which  carry  with  them  that  kind  of  knowl- 
edge which  throws  light  on  the  chances  that  the  boy  will  prove 
suitable,  diligent,  and  trustworthy. 

The  actual  introduction  of  the  boy  to  the  employer  by  the  parent, 
if  not  an  employee  himself,  is  clearly  very  exceptional,  and  the  ex- 
tent to  which  parents  are  often  handicapped  by  lack  of  knowledge 
alike  of  employers  and  of  trade  conditions,  however  careful  they 
may  wish  to  be,  is  well  known.  From  various  causes,  therefore, 
the  assumption  of  parental  responsibility  for  the  boy  in  industry 
does  not  appear  to  be  a  very  active  influence.  Thus  the  best  avail- 
able alternatives  for  this  are  often  welcomed  ;  and  in  the  minds  of 
a  fair  number  of  employers  the  adoption  of  a  definite  scheme  by 
which,  whatever  other  details  it  might  embody,  an  active  responsi- 
bility and  care  for  the  welfare  of  the  boy  should  be  shown  com- 
mends itself  to  their  judgment,  always  provided  that  in  the  exercise 
of  that  care  no  intrusion  on  the  proper  sphere  of  the  responsibilities 
of  the  employer  is  incurred. 

It  is  thus  very  significant  of  the  view  held  with  regard  to 
juvenile  labor  in  the  building  trades  and  to  the  supply  of  ade- 
quately trained  labor  in  the  future  that  in  a  group  of  trades  in 
which  the  practice  of  apprenticeship  has,  so  far  as  London  is 
concerned,  been  almost  abandoned,  and  in  which,  up  to  a  point, 
metropolitan  requirements  have  been  and  can  be  met  by  provincially 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     633 

trained  labor,  two  apprenticeship  schemes  should  have  been  re- 
cently prepared  by  those  who  in  a  very  partially  organized  industry 
have  the  best  right  to  speak  on  behalf  of  the  employers  as  a 
whole  ;  namely,  the  Master  Builders'  and,  with  special  reference 
to  decorators,  the  Master  Decorators'  associations. 

In  their  general  aim  these  schemes  are  identical,  and,  according 
to  the  former  of  the  two  mentioned,  it  is  recommended  that  for 
boys  commencing  their  apprenticeship  at  fourteen,  fifteen,  or  six- 
teen the  school  age  should  end  at  seventeen ; 1  that,  combined 
with  workshop  or  trade  experience,  time  off,  equivalent  to  two 
afternoons  weekly,  should  be  allowed  for  studying  the  theoretical 
side  of  their  trade  ;  that  the  continued  employment  of  apprentices 
should  be  subject  to  good  behavior  and  satisfactory  progress ;  and 
—  a  clause  especially  relevant  to  the  question  of  influence  and  re- 
sponsibility— that  steps  should  be  taken  to  see  that  the  conditions 
of  apprenticeship  are  being  reasonably  fulfilled  on  both  sides. 

It  is  and  must  remain  an  open  question  as  to  how  far  the  practice 
of  fully  indentured  apprenticeship  as  is  contemplated  in  the  pro- 
posals of  the  master  builders  is  likely  to  be  revived  in  the  build- 
ing trades  in  London  ;  but  when  the  various  considerations  bearing 
on  this  point  are  taken  into  account,  including  the  very  divergent 
view  held  both  by  employers  and  parents  as  to  the  merits  and 
suitability  of  full  apprenticeship,  it  is  certain  that  other  channels 
of  entry  to  most  operative  branches  of  the  trade  will  have  to  be 
taken  into  account,  not  only  as  those  which  will  probably,  but  will 
inevitably,  be  used. 

In  spite  of  the  views  expressed  in  favor  of  indentured  apprentice- 
ship and  of  the  testimony  to  the  guarantee  of  thoroughness  that 
can  be  best  insured  by  that  method,  there  is  also  abundant  evidence 

1  These  proposals  to  raise  the  school  age  for  certain  classes  of  boys,  although  with  a 
more  limited  application,  conform  in  this  respect,  and  thus  in  a  broad  general  principle, 
with  the  Education  (School  and  Continuation  Class  Attendance)  Bill  now  before  Parliament. 
According  to  this  bill,  if  children  are  exempted  from  attendance  at  school  up  to  the  age 
operative  in  any  locality,  on  the  grounds  that  they  are  about  to  enter  beneficial  employment, 
they  must  in  that  case,  up  to  the  age  of  sixteen  and  in  the  absence  of  some  reasonable  excuse, 
attend  continuation  classes,  as  specified  in  the  local  by-laws,  for  a  period  not  exceeding  150 
hours  in  the  year.  If  provision  were  made  in  the  bill  to  give  power  to  include  day  trade 
classes  in  the  classes  to  be  thus  specified,  the  agreement  in  their  general  principles  between 
the  proposals  of  the  master  builders  and  the  government  as  regards  age  conditions  and 
compulsory  attendance  would  be  very  marked. 


634  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

that  the  chances  that  a  boy  will  learn  his  trade  are  always  slight, 
whether  he  be  apprenticed  or  not,'  if  he  is  himself  indifferent ;  and 
it  is  equally  clear  that  those  boys  who  mean  to  learn  their  trade 
can  generally  do  so,  in  spite  of  the  modern  risks  of  specialization, 
in  the  absence  of  any  formal  undertaking.  The  formal  bond  be- 
tween the  employer  and  lad  appears  indeed  to  be  a  much  less  im- 
portant consideration  than  the  character  of  the  latter  and  the  way 
in  which  the  former  interprets  his  responsibilities.  It  is  to  be  noted, 
moreover,  that  in  a  great  majority  of  cases  an  apprentice  or  learner 
when  once  accepted  is  apt  to  pass  out  of  the  purview  of  the  employer 
himself,  and  to  a  still  greater  extent  his  chances  of  learning  a  trade 
will  then  be  in  direct  ratio  to  his  quickness  and  usefulness,  since 
trouble  is  apt  to  be  taken  —  be  it  by  the  foreman  or  by  the  journey- 
man made  responsible  for  the  lad  —  only  in  the  case  of  those  boys 
who  give  little  trouble,  and  to  be  withheld  in  the  case  of  those  from 
whom  no  quid  pro  quo  can  be  expected.  Unsatisfactory  and  incom- 
plete though  the  present  method  of  training  is  apt  to  be,  and  diffi- 
cult though  it  is  to  find  suitable  substitutes  even  for  a  method  of 
apprenticeship  that  often  carries  with  it  no  guarantee  of  adequate 
training,  the  changed  conditions  in  some  trades  and  the  desirability 
of  supplementing  workshop  experience  with  the  training  of  the 
school  seem  to  point  to  the  necessity  of  an  extensive  modification 
of  the  older  forms  of  apprenticeship  for  the  great  majority  of  lads 
—  perhaps  for  all. 

In  this  connection  the  different  grades  of  competency  that  are 
required  in  the  various  trades  have  to  be  recognized  as  well  as  the 
correlative  fact  that,  on  the  side  of  the  boy  as  of  the  adult  opera- 
tive, intelligence,  aptitude,  and  diligence  show  corresponding  dif- 
ferences. Thus  grades  of  training  as  well  as  grades  of  skilled 
requirements  have  perhaps  to  be  recognized  more  frankly  in  prac- 
tice. The  attempt,  even  in  a  single  occupation,  to  adopt  a  uniform 
system  of  placing  and  training  for  all  lads  would  overlook  those 
differences  of  aptitude,  character,  and  upbringing  which  are  per- 
haps as  important  in  connection  with  occupations  that  rank  as 
manual  as  they  are  in  respect  to  employers  and  professional  men. 

To  some  extent  this  classification  of  the  young  will  proceed 
automatically  :  the  best  and  most  suitable  firms  will  tend  to  attract 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     635 

the  best  lads,  and,  again,  the  best  of  these  will  tend  to  use  most 
effectively  the  trade  school  and  the  trade  class  when  these  are  pro- 
vided and  are  suitable.  Those  who  thus  obtain  the  best  experience 
in  the  shops  or  yards  and  the  most  scientific  training  of  the  schools 
will,  so  far  as  the  London  trained  operative  is  concerned,  furnish 
the  future  aristocracy  of  the  trade  and  those  from  among  whom 
leading  hands  and  foremen  and  to  some  extent  employers  are 
most  likely  to  be  found. 

The  automatic  sifting  of  the  best  and  the  uncertain  training  that 
is  at  present  provided  for  the  rank  and  file  are,  however,  inadequate  ; 
and  while  it  is  useless  to  expect  a  change  of  practice  that  will  place 
all  in  the  initial  years  of  their  industrial  life  on  the  same  level  of 
opportunity,  it  is  perfectly  reasonable  and  even  essential  to  con- 
sider by  what  means  an  improvement  of  method  can  be  widely 
adopted  so  as  to  shift  to  a  somewhat  higher  level  the  training  of 
perhaps  every  skilled  grade. 

The  chief,  but  not  the  sole,  agents  in  securing  this  will  be  the 
employers  themselves,  since  it  is  only  by  their  consent  and  good 
will  that  the  training  ground  of  the  shops  and  yards  can  be  made 
to  play  their  necessary  part.  And  as  has  been  seen,  many  of  the 
employers,  even  of  the  highest  grade,  are  unwilling  to  adopt  any 
line  of  action  .the  effects  of  which  do  not  seern  to  yield  a  direct  and 
manifest  advantage  to  themselves.  It  is  this  point  of  view  that  will 
apparently  have,  in  many  cases,  to  give  way  to  a  wider  and,  it 
may  be  added,  a  more  farsighted  recognition  of  the  claims  of  a 
great  industry  and  thus  of  the  community  of  which  it  forms  an 
essential  part. 

As  regards  the  frequent  attitude  of  employers  towards  this  ques- 
tion of  juvenile  employment,  it  may  be  observed  that  since  certain 
economic  reasons  —  such  as  the  character  and  organization  of 
London  work  and  the  pressure  and  keenness  of  the  internal  com- 
petition —  tend  to  prejudice  the  position  of  the  London  boy  in  the 
building  trades,  it  is  necessary  to  appraise  somewhat  carefully  the 
opinions  frequently  expressed  adverse  to  the  boys  themselves.  As 
a  class  these  are  clearly  necessary  to  the  trade,  so  that  towards  them 
there  is  apt  to  be  a  latent  feeling  of  obligation,  which  in  its  turn  in- 
volves the  danger  of  a  hasty  condemnation,  even  as  a  justification 


636  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

for  a  line  of  conduct  that,  if  adopted  by  all  employers  everywhere, 
would  lead  in  a  few  years  to  a  crisis  in  at  least  some  branches 
of  the  trade.  Although  some  allowance  has  thus  to  be  made  when 
boys  are  condemned  as  on  the  score  of  conduct,  lack  of  discipline, 
lack  of  interest  in  their  work,  or  absorption  in  games,  the  repeti- 
tion of  such  and  similar  complaints  is  so  constant  that  a  good  deal 
of  weight  has  to  be  attached  to  it ;  and,  even  though  as  a  class  boys 
in  an  inquiry  of  this  kind  are  an  unheard  party,  the  conclusion  has 
to  be  reached  that  some  share  of  the  responsibility  for  the  present 
position  has  to  be  borne  by  the  boys  themselves,  and  that  the  im- 
patience, lack  of  consideration,  and  shortsightedness  often  mani- 
fested by  the  employer  have  evidently  their  counterpart  frequently 
in  the  impatience,  want  of  discipline,  and  other  shortcomings  on 
the  part  of  the  boy.  Thus,  while  on  the  one  side  there  would  ap- 
pear to  be  need  of  a  wider  outlook,  on  the  other  there  is  abundant 
indication  of  the  scope  for  bringing  a  new  series  of  influences  to 
bear  —  not  only  in  respect  of  their  industrial  and  general  training 
but  also  through  a  friendly  guardianship  and,  if  need  be,  control  — 
on  those  who  are  beginning  their  industrial  life.  To  the  recogni- 
tion of  this  necessity  there  is  much  striking  testimony. 

The  constant  reference  to  the  need  of  competent  tradesmen  and 
to  the  shortage  of  those  who  can  be  placed  in  positions  of  respon- 
sibility points  significantly  to  the  necessity  of  providing  more 
adequately  for,  at  least,  some  of  the  genuine  labor  requirements 
of  the  trade. 

It  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  more  systematic  and  efficient 
training  of  a  number  proportionate  to  the  calculated  requirements 
of  a  trade  would  not  weaken  the  competitive  position  of  its  present 
members,  although  an  ill-regulated  influx,  as  has  been  experienced 
in  the  past,  would  undoubtedly  tend  to  have  that  effect.  It  must 
be  remembered,  moreover,  that  an  understocked  labor  market  tends 
not  infrequently  to  have  the  same  weakening  influence,  although 
more  gradually  and  in  ways  less  easily  distinguished. 

Thus  it  is  well  known  that  within  the  range  of  the  building  trades 
an  internal  competition  of  process  and  occasionally  of  craft  is  con- 
stantly making  itself  felt ;  and  it  is  a  general  truth  that,  when  the 
balance  of  strength  is  turned  at  any  given  period  disproportionately 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     637 

in  what  appears  to  be  the  favor  of  some  particular  section, 
competing  processes  come  more  quickly  into  use,  and  not  infre- 
quently the  competition  of  new  processes  —  either  in  the  shape  of 
alternative  materials  or  of  fresh  inventions  —  may  be  engendered. 
The  history  of  the  building  trades  affords  more  than  one  example 
of  the  truth  of  this  statement. 

But  a  labor  supply  that  is  ill  suited  to  the  elastic  requirements 
of  the  community,  either  because  of  an  actual  shortage  and  a  dis- 
proportionate costliness  or  because  of  inferior  training  and  unde- 
veloped skill,  and  thus  of  inferior  work,  checks  the  demand  in 
a  much  more  fundamental  way  than  that  just  indicated ;  namely, 
by  'diminishing  the  demand  for  its  services. 

It  is  a  commonplace  that  the  contractor  who  is  not  trusted  to 
that  extent  finds  his  position  prejudiced,  and  exactly  the  same  truth 
holds  good  of  the  journeyman,  for,  as  in  commerce,  so  in  the  build- 
ing trades,  that  confidence  which  the  operative  no  less  than  the 
contractor  has  to  take  his  share  in  creating  is  the  basis  upon  which 
every  healthy  manifestation  of  its  activity  rests.  The  conclusion  is 
thus  reached  that  up  to  the  point  that  is  in  accord  with  the  require- 
ments every  unit,  whatever  his  particular  grade  may  be,  that  enters 
a  trade  duly  qualified  technically  and  fearless  in  his  integrity,  so 
far  from  weakening  the  position  of  the  members  of  the  trade  which 
he  joins  strengthens  it,  mainly  because  of  the  confidence  that  he 
helps  to  inspire.  Thus  at  the  bench  or  the  yard  or  on  the  job,  not 
less  than  in  the  classroom,  the  claim  of  the  qualified  learner  to  be 
taught  the  best  of  which  he  is  capable  is  not  only  a  simple  and 
direct  moral  obligation  but  is  also  in  accordance  with  the  dictates 
of  an  intelligent  and  farsighted  self-interest.  As  a  leading  trade- 
unionist  remarked :  "  It  is  better  for  a  trade  to  have  its  members 
'  full '  and  not  '  half  '  mechanics."  And  another  :  "  In  the  inter- 
ests of  the  trade  union  competent  membership  is  regarded  as  essen- 
tial, since  the  way  in  which  their  work  is  done  tells  directly  upon 
the  demand  on  the  part  of  the  public  for  their  services." 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  observed  that  as  a  counterpart  of 
the  organization  of  a  trade  in  which  efficiency  is  apt  to  be  inter- 
preted in  terms  of  speed,  a  good  deal  is  heard  of  the  difficulty  of 
combining  thoroughness  with  the  requisite  quickness  and  of  the 


638  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

danger  of  dismissal  should  work,  through  being  "too  good,"  take 
too  long.  The  danger  is  greatest  in  connection  with  parts  of  the 
work  that  are  least  open  to  observation,  but  it  is  apt  to  become 
more  marked  in  an  industry  situated  as  are  the  building  trades 
to-day,  when  fresh  combinations  of  new  and  old  materials  are  so 
often  specified,  with  the  result  that  the  latter,  associated  in  the 
public  mind  with  strength,  are  often  introduced  rather  for  effect 
than  for  structural  purposes.  The  extent  to  which  work  is  con- 
cealed on  a  building  and  to  which  work  that  is  visible  is  intended 
to  deceive  the  eye  as  to  the  part  which  it  is  really  playing  in  con- 
struction are  practical  considerations  that  weaken  the  uniformity 
of  the  demand  for  .good  work  and  that,  in  tending  to  lower  the 
ethical  constructive  standard  of  a  great  industry,  tend  also  inevitably 
to  complicate  the  problems  of  industrial  training. 

It  is  outside  the  scope  of  this  report  to  endeavor  to  indicate  the 
best  methods  of  training  (and  these  will  indeed,  as  has  been  implied, 
differ  with  the  trade  and  with  the  individual),  as  also  is  the  attempt 
to  indicate  the  proper  or  most  practicable  relationship  between  the 
trade  school  or  class  and  the  workshop,  or,  again,  the  extent  to 
which  the  practical  experience  of  the  latter  is  essential  if  the  greatest 
use  of  the  more  theoretical  training  of  the  former  is  to  be  insured. 

It  may  be  noted,  however,  that  even  as  regards  those  occupa- 
tions in  which  the  trade  school  or  the  trade  class  is  likely  to  be  of 
the  greatest  service,  as  for  joiners,  plumbers,  electrical  workers,  and 
fibrous  plaster  workers,  there  is  almost  a  consensus  of  opinion  that 
the  practice  of  the  school  tends  to  differ  to  an  important,  although 
in  a  somewhat  indefinable,  way  from  that  of  the  workshop.  To  a 
great  extent  this  difference  appears  to  be  traceable  to  the  inability 
of  the  former  to  give  the  learner  what  is  regarded  as  a  commer- 
cial aptitude  in  the  handling  of  tools  and  material  and  thus  the 
command  of  commercial  efficiency.  In  those  cases,  therefore,  in 
which  learners  have  not  had  the  opportunity  of  combining  the  two- 
fold experience,  the  task  of  adaptation  to  the  requirements  of  the 
workshop  is  sometimes  at  first  made  more  difficult,  rather  than  less, 
by  the  training  of  the  schools,  although  ultimately  the  value  of  the 
latter,  if  it  has  been  properly  assimilated,  secures  its  advantage. 
In  as  far  as  possible,  however,  the  best  arrangement  appears  to  be 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     639 

that  the  double  experience  should  be  gained  concurrently,  to  the 
end  that  the  maximum  advantage  from  both  may  be  secured. 

So  far  the  necessity  for  the  temporary  absence  of  the  lad  during 
working  hours  has  hardly  been  raised,  but  many  employers  would 
clearly  be  opposed  to  it,  on  the  ground  that  work  would  be  too 
greatly  disorganized.  In  the  view  of  others,  however,  this  diffi- 
culty is  apt  to  be  exaggerated  and  as  applying  to  most  branches  of 
the  trade,  in  which  the  apprentice  or  learner  does  not  or  need  not 
work  directly  with  the  trained  man,  the  difficulty  is  said  not  to  ex- 
ist. It  would  probably  be  most  real  in  the  case  of  young  plumbers, 
but  in  respect  to  suitable  classes  in  all  branches  of  the  trade  the 
view  appears  to  be  a  sound  one  that,  in  workshop  organization, 
sooner  or  later  the  question  of  absence  for  industrial  training,  and 
perhaps  more  general  education,  will  have  to  be  taken  into  com- 
pleter  account.  Even  assuming  that  effective  attendance  in  the 
evening  ought  to  be  expected,  the  expectation  is  not  likely  to  be 
realized  as  regards  most  boys,  either  because  they  would  be  unwill- 
ing to  give  the  time  or  too  tired  to  profit  by  the  teaching  if  they  did. 

In  conclusion,  reference  may  be  made  again  to  what  has  been  de- 
scribed as  the  suitable  proportion  of  learners  and  the  possibility  of 
securing  such  a  proportion  in  accordance  with  some  organized  plan. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  numbers  thus  required  for  the  various 
trades  can  never  be  laid  down  with  exactitude. 

The  elements  of  the  problem  are  too  obscure  —  such  as  the  al- 
lowance which  it  would  be  necessary  to  make  for  trade  fluctuation, 
for  migration  from  the  country,  and  for  the  movement  away  from 
London  to  the  provinces  or  to  other  parts  of  the  empire,  and  for 
the  effect  of  inventions,  changes  in  trade  custom,  and  in  fashion. 
But  there  are  certain  data  which  give  some  basis  of  rough  calcula- 
tion, such  as  the  census  figures,  indicating,  albeit  very  defectively, 
the  decennial  expansion  or  contraction  of  trades ; *  the  average 
working  life  of  the  individual ;  the  conditions  set  out  in  several 
trades  as  to  the  proportion  of  juvenile  to  adult  workers  ;  and  the 
census  of  wages  figures  of  adults  and  juveniles  in  London. 

l  The  comparison  of  the  figures  for  1911,  when  published,  with  those  for  1901  will  have 
greater  usefulness  than  any  earlier  returns,  since  comparable  figures  for  the  county  occupa- 
tional-age periods  will  be  for  the  first  time  available. 


640  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

On  such  bases,  conflicting  though  the  elements  of  the  problem 
are,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  conclude  that  an  approximately  safe 
figure  could  be  arrived  at  by  those  with  a  knowledge  of  the  various 
trades,  at  least  as  to  the  minimum  number  that  ought  year  by  year 
to  be  admitted  to  them  in  London  for  training  there. 

On  this  point  a  suggestion  that,  for  some  trades,  conferences 
between  representatives  of  employers  and  workers  might  prove  of 
use  appears  worth  consideration,  both  sides  being  intimately  con- 
cerned in  any  proposals  that  might  be  made. 

It  is  evident  that,  in  order  to  act  on  such  recommendations,  a 
greater  degree  of  cohesion  in  the  trade  would  be  required  than  at 
present  exists,  if  only  because  the  proposals  themselves  and  the 
action  taken  on  them  ought  to  be  accompanied  by  as  complete 
knowledge  as  possible  of  the  number  and  ages  of  existing  appren- 
tices or  learners.  It  is  possible  that  in  the  future  useful  informa- 
tion bearing  on  this  point  will  be  made  available  through  the  new 
National  Insurance  Bill ;  but,  should  official  returns  be  insufficient, 
there  is  no  apparent  reason  why  such  information  should  not  be 
furnished  by  responsible  employers  to  any  central  organization 
admitted  to  be  acting  in  the  best  interests  of  the  trade. 

When  an  estimate  has  been  formed  of  the  shortage  of  learners 
or  apprentices  in  any  given  trade,  and  of  its  special  needs,  —  which 
would  probably  at  present  be  for  more  careful  selection  and  train- 
ing of  recruits  rather  than  for  any  great  increase  in  their  num- 
bers, —  a  deliberate  effort  would  have  to  be  made  to  secure  such 
vacancies  and  such  an  allocation  of  vacancies  as  would  meet  the 
requirements. 

In  this  portion  of  the  task  also  the  guidance  of  the  trade  itself 
would  be  of  great  value,  owing  largely  to  the  completer  knowledge 
that  could  thus  be  made  available  than  by  any  other  means,  of 
such  firms  as  would  be  not  only  willing  to  train  boys  but  suitable 
for  the  task. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  observed  that  the  returns  from  em- 
ployers obtained  for  the  present  investigation  provide  a  consider- 
able amount  of  evidence  bearing  directly  upon  the  above  point. 
There  are  great  difficulties,  however,  in  the  way  of  securing  this 
information  widely  and  reliably  other  than  indirectly  through  those 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     641 

possessing  a  wide  knowledge  and  an  intimate  experience  of  the 
trade.  Outside  its  ranks  cumulative  experience  can  provide  much 
of  the  necessary  guidance,  but  internal  changes  in  personnel  and  in 
the  character  of  the  management,  be  it  at  the  top  or  in  the  work- 
shop, will  always  be  very  difficult  to  trace.  Other  things  being 
equal,  it  may  be  observed  that  in  all  cases  the  most  suitable  firms 
are  likely  to  be  those  of  which  the  heads  have  a  first-hand  appre- 
ciation of  trade  craftsmanship  in  at  least  some  branches  of  the 
trade  and  whose  qualifications  are  not  simply  organizing  capacity, 
command  of  capital,  and  commercial  insight. 
'  In  view  of  the  condition  of  the  trade  it  may  well  be  that  in  some 
of  its  branches  there  is  at  the  present  time  no  demonstrable  need 
for  any  additional  learners  or  apprentices,  but  even  at  the  moment 
this  is  not  the  case  right  through  the  trade.  It  is  desirable,  how- 
ever, as  much  for  the  future  as  for  the  present,  to  look  forward  to 
the  inception  of  a  scheme  in  which  those  representing  the  trade 
would  be  combined  in  an  attempt  to  estimate  its  personal  needs ; 
and  to  stimulate  the  trade  so  that  those  needs  might  be  met,  in 
as  far  as  possible,  steadily  and  continuously  and  not  spasmodically 
as  in  the  past. 

As  compared  with  such  a  movement,  inspired  by  a  concern 
for  the  welfare  of  the  building  trades  as  a  whole,  the  question  as 
to  the  particular  conditions  of  training  which  it  may  be  best  to 
adopt  —  whether  with  or  without  premium,  whether  with  inden- 
tured apprenticeship  or  as,  learners  under  agreement,  or  merely 
as  learners  —  would  be  of  comparative  unimportance  and,  as  has 
been  already  indicated,  the  best  would  probably  vary  not  only 
as  between  occupation  and  occupation  but  also  as  between  firm 
and  firm. 

The  whole  problem,  apart  from  its  more  purely  social  character, 
is,  on  the  one  hand,  educational  and,  on  the  other,  industrial.  As 
regards  education  and  the  training  that  can  be  given  outside  the 
workshop  or  the  yard,  it  is  clear  that  this  will  have  to  be  as  elastic 
as  possible,  lending  itself  to  a  ready  adaptation,  as  need  may  arise, 
to  changing  industrial  conditions,  since  these,  although  they  can  be 
influenced  by  the  training  of  the  classroom,  cannot  be  determined 
by  it. 


642  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

On  the  other  hand,  the  industrial  problem  is  itself  complicated 
by  those  conditions  which  are  tending  constantly  to  give  new  and 
often  lower  values  to  technical  qualifications.  While,  therefore, 
new  elements  of  uncertainty  and  deterioration  are  being  intro- 
duced into  some  of  the  older  occupations,  it  may  be  observed  that 
at  the  same  time  in  some  directions  the  importance  of  resource- 
fulness and  adaptability,  and  perhaps  character,  is  increasing, 
and  training  will  have  to  take  this  into  account. 

.  Under  modern  conditions,  however,  in  which  the  elements  of 
change  and  uncertainty  have  been  seen  to  enter  so  conspicuously, 
no  part  of  the  practical  task  either  of  school  or  shop  training  or  of 
placing  the  lad  in  industry  can  be  stereotyped ;  and  in  the  latter  task 
the  most  intimate  knowledge  possible  will  be  required  alike  of  the 
boys,  of  the  employers,  and  of  the  industry  as  a  whole.  It  is  in 
the  last  two  respects  that  the  knowledge  and  accumulated  expe- 
rience of  the  labor  exchanges  should  become  increasingly  valuable, 
as  complementary  to  any  personal  knowledge  that  such  a  body  as 
the  Juvenile  Advisory  Committee  may  have  at  its  disposal  as  to 
the  career  of  the  boy  himself  and  as  to  his  own  wishes  and  that 
of  his  parents  as  to  what  his  future  occupation  is  to  be. 

In  respect  to  the  juvenile,  the  most  important  outcome  of  the 
experience  of  the  labor  exchanges,  aided,  it  may  be  hoped,  by 
the  active  assistance  of  the  trades  concerned,  will  be  a  certain 
power  to  judge  as  to  the  relative  advantages  which  available  va- 
cancies appear  to  offer,  and  gradually  this  judgment,  especially  in 
respect  to  lads  seeking  to  enter  occupations  to  which  they  have 
no  hereditary  claim,  will  probably  be  the  best  that  the  juvenile,  or 
those  acting  on  his  behalf,  can  obtain.  But  it  is  expedient  that  its 
inevitable  limitations  should  be  recognized,  and  that  the  guidance 
which  it  may  make  possible,  whatever  the  authority  or  body  that 
gives  it  may  be,  should  be  clearly  interpreted  as  being  rather  the 
provision  of  an  opportunity  to  make  the  best  choice  possible  than 
the  acceptance  of  any  responsibility  as  regards  both  parents  and 
boys  for  the  satisfactoriness  and  stability  of  any  particular  occupation 
chosen.  At  the  inception  of  a  machinery  that,  should  it  expand, 
will  necessarily  tend  to  affect  the  outlook  and  habits  of  the  rising 
generation  in  a  very  definite  way,  it  is  permissible  to  emphasize 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     643 

the  importance  of  these  points,  in  order  that  care  may  be  taken  at 
the  outset  to  dissociate  in  the  public  mind  the  function  of  giving 
advice  and  the  exercise  of  a  friendly  care  from  the  assumption  of 
a  responsibility  that  cannot  in  any  large  sense,  under  existing 
conditions,  be  borne. 

APPENDIX 
I 

The  following  extracts  have  been  chosen  from  the  material 
collected  for  the  present  inquiry  as  being  either  representative 
or  suggestive  in  character : 

(37)  LARGE  BUILDERS  AND-  CONTRACTORS  IN  SOUTHEAST  LONDON 

Learners  in  all  branches  begin  at  2d.  an  hour,  and  reach  6d.  at  the  end 
of  four  years,  equivalent  to  a  rise  of  i  d.  per  week  each  year. 

Boys  who  are  going  to  work  in  branches  where  there  is  machinery,  if  taken 
at  an  earlier  age,  are  kept  in  the  foreman's  office  until  they  are  sixteen.  Appren- 
ticeship, though  preferable,  is  dying  out,  as  men  oppose  it  and  boys  do  not  like 
to  be  tied.  Apprentices,  moreover,  sometimes  take  advantage  of  their  position. 
Exchanges  for  juveniles  would  be  superfluous  in  this  district  as  there  is  a 
large  supply  of  boys  available,  skilled  and  otherwise. 

(31)   A  FIRM  OF  BUILDERS  AND  CONTRACTORS  IN  WEST  LONDON 

From  30  to  100  employed. 

Boys  are  taught  by  workmen  under  supervision  of  foreman.  Quite  satis- 
factory, as  man  is  supervised  by  employers  also.  The  men  themselves  are  not 
usually  well  disposed  towards  boys,  whom  they  consider  competitors.  The  boy 
has,  therefore,  to  use  his  wits  and  pick  up  what  he  can  himself.  Boys  are  not 
in  much  request  unless  they  are  so  good  as  to  be  worth  their  bench  room, 
which  is  valuable  now,  owing  to  rates  and  rents. 

(2 1 8 A)   AN  OLD-ESTABLISHED  AND  IMPORTANT  FIRM  OF  BUILDERS  IN 

SOUTH  LONDON 

Employing  from  250  to  550. 

Wage  scale  for  plumber,  bricklayer,  and  plasterer  apprentices  for  five  years : 
53.,  8s.,  I2S.,  155.,  20  s. 

The  scale  for  joiners  for  six  years:  55.,  8s.,  ios.,  I2S.,  153.,  20 s. 

Afterwards,  if  they  stay  on,  they  work  as  improvers  for  a  year  or  two  at 
8d.  per  hour. 


644  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  usual  age  is  fifteen  to  sixteen,  boys  younger  than  this  not  being  strong 
enough. 

Boys  are  recommended  personally  by  the  vicar  of  the  neighboring  church, 
by  clients,  friends,  etc.,  or  are  sons  of  employees.  Firm  attaches  importance  to 
personal  recommendations,  and  is  unable  to  accept  all  who  are  recommended 
even  now. 

(215)   A  FIRM  OF  ABOUT  FIFTY  YEARS'  STANDING  IN  SOUTH  LONDON 

Employing  from  about  40  to  1  10  persons,  according  to  state  of  trade.  The 
employer  is  keenly  interested  in  the  whole  question  of  training  boys  and  has 
taken  considerable  pains  personally  to  give  those  in  his  employ  a  first-class 
training,  finding  it  good  policy.  His  most  efficient  workers  are  those  trained 
by  himself,  and  their  mutual  relations  are  all  the  more  harmonious. 

An  arrangement  has  been  made  with  the  foreman  to  form  a  class  in  the 
evenings  for  training  a  few  of  his  boys  in  first-class  painting  and  decorating, 
including  graining,  sign  writing,  and  enameling. 

The  large  majority  of  efficient  men  in  London  is  said  to  be  over  forty  years 
of  age  and  trained  under  the  old  apprenticeship  system.  The  boys  are  started 
at  i^d.  per  hour  and  rise  £d.  per  hour  according  to  progress  made  until  they 
attain  journeymen's  rates.  Three  boys  are  learning  electrical  work  (wiring,  etc.), 
three  are  plumbers'  mates,  none  at  present  in  joiners'  shop.  Boys  are  also 
taken  for  joinery  work,  painting,  and  decorating. 

•  Plumbers'  boys  start  at  i^d.  and  in  three  or  four  years  (according  to  ability) 
rise  to  3  d.  or  3^  d.  per  hour.  Afterwards  they  go  with  plumbers  as  mates  at 
6d.  to  yd.  per  hour. 

Boys  learning  wiring,  etc.,  rise  to  3  d.  or  4d.  per  hour  in  three  to  four  years, 
and  then  frequently  go  to  other  firms  as  assistant  wiremen  at  8  d.  per  hour. 

Most  of  the  boys  now  with  firm  commenced  at  age  of  sixteen  to  seventeen. 
The  firm,  however,  is  willing  to  take  them  younger.  In  the  painting  and 
decorating  work,  the  employer  himself  assists  in  training  boys  and  watches 
their  progress  closely.  In  the  other  trades  boys  assist  men  under  supervision 
of  foremen. 

(24)  A  LARGE  SOUTH  LONDON  FIRM  OF  BUILDERS  AND  CONTRACTORS 

Employing  from  400  to  900. 

Four  apprentices  (indentured)  (sixteen  to  eighteen  years),  in  joiners'  shop  ; 
no  other  juveniles. 

2d.    per  hour  first  year! 

i  j          u        i  r2d.,  24  d.,  3d.,  34  d.,  44  d. 

4^  d.  per  hour  last  year  / 


Wages  usually  amount  to  premium  and  sometimes  exceed  this. 
Usual  age  at  which  boys  are  taken,  from  fifteen  to  sixteen  years.   Appren- 
ticeship in  some  cases  extends  over  three  years  only. 

No  special  qualifications  required,  but  willingness  and  average  intelligence. 


JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  BUILDING  TRADES     645 

Kept  on  by  firm  as  improvers  for  two  years  after  apprenticeship,  and  then 
paid  full  wages. 

Probation  of  one  month. 

Term :  from  three  to  five  years ;  ends  at  age  of  twenty-one. 

Premium  ^50. 

Employees'  sons  are  given  preference;  more  applications  than  can  be 
entertained. 

Abundant  supply  of  skilled  men  in  most  branches ;  fast  work  in  bricklaying 
makes  it  unprofitable  to  employ  apprentices  in  this  work. 

(27)   A  LARGE  FIRM  OF  BUILDERS  AND  CONTRACTORS  IN  NORTHWEST 

LONDON 

Numbers  employed  ranging  from  250  to  500. 

This  firm  employs  boys  in  joiners'  shop  only.  Boys  are  learners,  neither 
indentures  nor  any  form  of  agreement  being  used. 

Employed  two  years  as  shop  boys  (that  is,  wait  on  men  generally)  and  re- 
ceive 45.  to  53.  weekly.  Afterwards  begin  bench  work  and  commence  at  3d. 
per  hour,  rising  to  5d.  and  6d.  per  hour  according  to  their  work.  Fully  quali- 
fied joiners  are  paid  iold.  per  hour.  Shop  boys  are  taken  on  at  fourteen  to 
fifteen  years.  Any  smart  boy  is  eligible.  Training  under  foreman.  Boys 
advised  to  attend  local  technical  institute.  Boys  are  not  discharged  in  slack 
seasons,  but  hours  are  shortened,  no  deduction  made  from  shop  boys'  wages ; 
bench  boys  are  paid  by  the  hour.  When  boys  are  wanted  foreman  gives 
preference  to  sons  of  workmen.  No  scarcity  of  applicants  experienced  up 
to  the  present.  Workmen  often  recommend  sons  of  friends  or  acquaintances. 
Supply  of  skilled  men  pretty  constant  from  the  country. 

(443)   AN  OLD-ESTABLISHED  FIRM  OF  JOBBING  BUILDERS  IN  NORTH- 
WEST LONDON 

The  number  of  men  they  employ  varies  from  30  to  100.  Among  these 
there  are  only  two  juveniles.  The  latter  are  office  boys  or  messenger  boys, 
who,  after  "  finding  their  feet "  during  a  year  or  two,  take  to  some  trade  and 
learn  it  as  they  go  along.  This  generally  happens  when  they  are  sixteen  or 
seventeen  years  old.  The  firm  has  had  no  apprentice  for  twelve  years.  The 
following  objections  to  apprenticeship  were  mentioned : 

If  a  boy  can  get  on  as  apprentice,  he  can  get  on  without  being  apprenticed. 

Lads  take  advantage  of  the  fact  that  they  are  bound  for  five  years,  and 
cannot  be  got  rid  of. 

Again,  boys  grow  impatient  and  dissatisfied  during  their  term.  Many  want 
to  be  off  to  Canada. 

Finally,  the  old  system  rather  made  for  overspecialization.  Boys  were 
compelled  to  stick  to  one  kind  of  job  and  learned  nothing  else. 


646  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

As  to  whether  the  building  trade  holds  out  prospects  of  permanent  employ- 
ment, it  was  said  that  there  is  not  now  the  same  continuous  work  that  was 
once  provided  for  the  men  when  masters  were  more  scrupulous  and  did  not 
let  men  go  if  they  could  possibly  help  it.  The  prospects  of  permanent  employ- 
ment are,  however,  fair.  A  jobbing  carpenter  is  always  in  demand ;  but  many 
things  —  sashes,  doors,  etc.  —  are  now  manufactured  by  machinery,  and  that 
limits  the  field  of  employment.  It  also  narrows  the  boy's  opportunity  of 
learning  his  business  thoroughly. 


CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  THE 

READY-MADE    WOMEN'S    CLOTHING    TRADES    IN 

LONDON,  IN  THE  SPRING  OF  1911 

BY  Miss  COLLET,  SENIOR  INVESTIGATOR  FOR  WOMEN'S  INDUSTRIES 

(Report  on  Inquiry  communicated  by  the  Board  of  Trade  to  the  London  Juve- 
nile Advisory  Committee  for  use  in  connection  with  the  Juvenile  Section  of 
the  London  Labor  Exchanges,  July,  1911) 

Firms  visited  and  numbers  employed  by  firms  giving  informa- 
tion. Visits  have  been  paid  to  965  firms  entered  in  the  London 
directory  as  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  costumes,  blouses, 
mantles,  skirts,  millinery,  underclothing,  corsets,  and  embroidery. 

Detailed  reports  of  every  visit  have  been  supplied  to  the  secre- 
tary of  the  London  Juvenile  Advisory  Committee. 

Of  these  965  firms,  259  were  found  to  have  warehouses  only, 
with  no  factories  or  workshops  of  their  own  in  the  area  visited ; 
42  had  retail  shops  employing  no  one  in  manufacture  unless  on 
alterations ;  69  employed  no  juvenile  labor  and  gave  only  vague 
information  or  were  working  for  private  customers  only ;  1 3  em- 
ployed no  one  outside  their  family ;  46  had  left  the  address  given  ; 
and  23  refused  information. 

The  remaining  513  firms  employed  approximately  30,600  per- 
sons at  the  time  of  inquiry.  The  table  on  page  648  shows  the 
distribution  of  the  firms  .in  trades  and  districts. 

Although  many  firms  were  entered  in  the  directory  as  manu- 
facturers in  only  one  branch  of  these  trades,  investigation  showed 
that  no  hard-and-fast  line  could  be  drawn  between  costume  makers, 
coat  and  skirt  makers,  mantle  makers,  blouse  makers,  and  skirt 
makers.  The  blouse  makers  in  several  cases  were  blouse  makers 
only  if  under  that  term  the  "blouse  suit,"  or  robe,  be  included. 
Mantle  makers  and  ladies'  tailors  were  manufacturers  of  costumes, 
the  latter  name  being  assumed  in  workrooms  where  men  were 

647 


648 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


largely  employed.  The  number  solely  employed  on  the  premises 
of  these  firms  in  making  ladies'  mantles  for  outdoor  wear  was 
small.  Few  firms  confine  themselves  to  making  skirts  only,  and 
the  underskirt  makers  had  in  general  suffered  so  severely  from 
the  "  hobble  skirt "  fashion  that  some  of  them  were  abandoning 
this  branch  altogether. 


TABLE    SHOWING    THE    NUMBER    OF    FIRMS    GIVING    INFOR- 
MATION, GROUPED  ACCORDING  TO  TRADE  IN  EACH  LABOR- 
EXCHANGE  AREA  VISITED 


TRADE 

NUMBER  OF  FIRMS 

c 

u 

O 

«3 

Camden  Town 

u 

Elephant 

Finsbury 

Hackney 

c 
o 

'2 

Rotherhithe 

Shepherd's  Bush 

I 

O 

1 

i 

Costumes,  blouses,  mantles, 
skirts    

'5 
I 
i 

2 

5 

i 

2 

I 

95 

8 

7 
5 
14 
45 

8 

5 

4 
7 
I 
II 

16 

13 

i 

5 
i 

18 

3 
i 

2 

3 

73 
3 

12 

8 

— 

I 

25 

8 

7 
i 
i 

5 

2 

319 

16 

27 
3° 
45 
76 

Infants'  millinery  .     .     .     . 
Underclothing  

Corsets    

Embroidery  

Ladies'  millinery  .... 
Total     

19 

9 

174 

13 

IOO 

20 

28 

98 

2 

I 

42 

7 

5i3 

In  the  West  End  group  have  been  included  a  considerable  num- 
ber employed  by  firms  doing  the  highest  class  of  work  for  private 
customers  but  included  in  the  inquiry  because  they  are  engaged 
to  a  great  extent  in  making  models  for  sale  to  other  firms. 

Learners.  It  is  only  in  such  firms  manufacturing  the  highest 
class  of  goods  and  hardly  using  a  sewing  machine  that  apprentice- 
ship is  at  all  customary.  Even  in  those  branches  of  the  trades  in 
which  handwork  is  of  great  importance,  there  are  few  cases  in 
which  any  binding  agreement  is  entered  on.  In  all  branches  (and 
they  are  the  majority  in  the  ready-made  trades)  where  piecework 

1  The  exchange  areas  of  Clapham  Junction,  New  Cross,  Camberwell,  Woolwich,  and 
Lewisham  were  not  visited,  the  numbers  employed  in  these  trades  being  shown  by  the 
factory  returns  to  be  relatively  small  in  those  districts. 


CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT         649 


is  adopted  the  earnings  of  the  cleverer  girls  so  greatly  exceed 
those  of  the  slowest  that  after  a  few  months  as  learners  on  a  time 
wage  they  are  put  on  piece  rates  and  earn  what  they  can.  After 
a  year  they  cease  to  be  regarded  as  learners.  This  is  especially 
the  case  with  machinists.  In  other  cases  they  may  be  learners  on 
a  time  wage  for  a  much  longer  period.  Any  attempt  to  define 
the  period  of  time  during  which  a  girl  was  regarded  as  a  learner 
was  generally  met  by  the  reply  that  everything  depended  so  much 
upon  the  girl. 

With  such  a  vague  definition  of  the  period  during  which  a  girl 
remained  a  learner,  the  following  table,  showing  the  number  of 
learners  employed,  can  convey  little  exact  information.  Still  it  may 
be  taken  as  presenting  the  maximum  number  of  girls  required  as 
learners  in  any  one  year,  and  if  we  assume  that  the  proportion 
employed  by  the  firms  who  did  not  state  the  number  of  learners 
employed  by  them  was  the  same  as  in  the  firms  giving  the  infor- 
mation, we  get  a  maximum  demand  of  about  3000  girls  as  learners 
in  the  firms  visited. 

The  following  table  shows  the  number  of  workpeople  employed 
by  firms  with  no  learners  and  by  firms  with  learners  : 


NUMBER  OF 

TRADE 

TOTAL 
NUMBER  OF 
WORKPEOPLE 

NUMBER  OF 
WORKPEOPLE 
EMPLOYED  BY 

NUMBER  EMPLOYED  BY  FIRMS 
WITH  STATED  NUMBER  OF 
WORKERS 

WORKPEOPLE 
EMPLOYED  BY 
FIRMS  WITH 

EMPLOYED  BY 

FIRMS  WITH 

LEARNERS 

FIRMS  GIVING 

WHOSE 

INFORMATION 

Workpeople 

Learners 

NUMBER  WAS 

Costumes,  blouses, 

mantles,  skirts    . 

21,927 

3316 

15.165 

1764 

3446 

Infants'  millinery  . 

1.374 

215 

1,099 

78 

60 

Underclothing  .     . 

2,199 

230 

1.233 

138 

736 

Corsets    .... 

733 

49 

532 

29 

152 

Embroidery  .     .     . 

1,287 

160 

1,047 

159 

80 

Ladies'  millinery  . 

3,043 

393 

2,239 

301 

4II 

Total     .... 

30.563 

4363 

2i,3T5 

2469 

4885 

Wages  of  learners.    Firms  employing  25,000  workpeople  gave 
particulars  of  the  weekly  wages  given  to  learners  while  on  time 


650  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

wage.  Disregarding  a  first  week's  trial  for  nothing  required  by 
some  firms : 

Firms  employing  1 3  ^  per  cent  paid  nothing  at  first  to  learners 

Firms  employing  1 6  per  cent  paid  2  s.  or  less 

Firms  employing  27  per  cent  paid  2s.  6d. 

Firms  employing  26  per  cent  paid  3  s. 

Firms  employing  9  per  cent  paid  33.  6d.,  43.,  or  43.  6  d. 

Firms  employing  8^  per  cent  paid  5  s. 

Total  ...  100 

A  rise  of  6d.  a  week  at  the  end  of  three  months  or  of  I  s.  at  the 
end  of  six  months  was  common ;  full  particulars  have  been  given 
in  the  detailed  reports. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  second  year  time  wages  were  no  longer 
paid  by  many  firms,  their  learners  then  earning  varying  amounts 
on  piecework.  Firms  employing  about  11,800  workpeople  gave 
particulars  of  the  wages  earned  at  the  beginning  of  the  second 
year,  referring  to  hand  workers  in  most  cases.  From  these  it 
appears  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  year 

Firms  employing    3  per  cent  paid  2s.  or  2s.  6d. 
Firms  employing  24  per  cent  paid  33.  or  33.  6d. 
Firms  employing    8  per  cent  paid  43.  or  43.  6d. 
Firms  employing  33  per  cent  paid  53.  or  53.  6d. 
Firms  employing  24  per  cent  paid  6s. 
Firms  employing    3  per  cent  paid  6s.  6d.  and  under  IDS. 
Firms  employing    5  per  cent  paid  i  o  s. 

Wages  in  third  and  fourth  year.  With  so  much  variety  in  the 
earnings  of  machinists  in  their  second  year,  it  followed  naturally 
that  employers  could  give  no  definite  information  with  regard  to 
wages  at  the  end  of  a  third  year.  There  was  a  tendency  to  re- 
member the  wages  of  some  clever  girl  whose  performances  had 
especially  struck  her  employer's  attention. 

The  Board  of  Trade  report  on  Earnings  and  Hours  of  Labor 
in  1906  gives  the  wages  earned  in  a  full  week  for  girls  under 
eighteen  years  of  age,  and  interpreting  these  returns  by  the  light 
of  information  given  by  employers  to  the  investigators,  a  girl  of 
seventeen  of  good. capacity,  without  exceptional  ability,  after  three 
years'  experience  in  these  trades  would  be  earning  on  piecework 
from  95.  to  12  s.  a  week. 


CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT         651 

Range  of  earnings  of  adult  ivorkers.  From  the  Board  of  Trade 
returns  the  following  estimate  has  also  been  formed  of  the  ordi- 
nary range  of  earnings  of  women  of  eighteen  years  and  upwards 
in  these  trades,  the  best  paid  and  the  worst  paid  being  omitted 
in  each  group : 

ORDINARY  RANGE  OF  EARNINGS  FOR  A  FULL  WEEK  OF 
WOMEN  OF  EIGHTEEN  YEARS  AND  UPWARDS 

Forewomen 20  s.  to  303. 

Cutters 143.  to  203. 

Machine  sewers,  hand  or  foot 

Time 1 2  s.  to  173. 

Piece I2s.  to  193.  6d. 

Machine  sewers,  power 

Time 1 2  s.  to  1 7  s. 

Piece 1 1  s.  to  1 9  s. 

Hand  sewers 

Time IDS.  to  i6s. 

Piece 10 s.  6d.  to  20 s. 

Hours  and  mealtimes.  Although  on  their  factory  schedules  the 
employers  as  a  rule  enter  their  hours  as  being  the  full  number 
permitted  by  law,  namely,  from  8  A.M.  to  8  P.M.  on  ordinary  days, 
with  only  one  and  one-half  hours'  interval  for  meals,  and  8  to  4  on 
Saturdays,  with  one  half  hour's  interval,  the  full  legal  time  is  prac- 
tically never  worked  unless  at  times  of  pressure,  except  in  work- 
shops employing  men,  more  especially  in  the  Jewish  workshops. 

The  hours  of  labor  were  stated  by  firms  employing  26,000  work- 
people, and  it  will  be  seen  from  the  table  given  below  that  only 
9  per  cent  began  work  at  8  A.M.,  39  per  cent  at  8.30,  13  per  cent 
at  8.45  to  8.55,  and  39  per  cent  at  9  A.M. 

The  law  permits  a  breakfast  interval  to  be  fixed  from  8  A.M.  to 
8.30  A.M.,  so  that  if  workers  begin  work  at  8.30  it  is  not  obligatory 
on  employers  to  allow  more  than  one  hour's  further  interval  before 
8  P.M.  Those  beginning  at  8.30  might  legally,  therefore,  be  em- 
ployed 60  hours  in  the  week.  Only  8  in  10,000  beginning  at  this 
hour  worked  as  much  as  57^-  hours,  and  only  4  per  cent  worked 
as  many  as  55  hours. 


652  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

The  law  permits  workpeople  in  these  trades  to  be  employed  for 
five  hours  continuously,  and  it  would  therefore  be  legal  for  an  em- 
ployer to  make  his  workpeople  work  from  2  P.M.  to  7  P.M.  without 
an  interval  for  tea.  No  employer  in  the  ready-made  women's  cloth- 
ing trades  has  been  found  who  conducts  his  business  on  such  lines ; 
even  those  who  leave  off  work  at  6  o'clock  are  nearly  always  allowed 
an  interval  for  tea  during  the  afternoon.  The  employers  usually 
stated  that  the  girls  were  allowed  one  hour  for  dinner  and  half  an 
hour  for  tea.  As,  however,  no  legal  obligation  rests  upon  them  to 
give  this  tea  interval  when  the  half  hour  for  breakfast  and  the  hour 
for  dinner  have  been  entered  on  their  schedule  (unless  the  period 
of  work  after  dinner  lasts  more  than  five  hours),  it  is  possible  that 
in  practice  the  tea  interval  would  vary  with  the  pressure  of  work. 
The  table  showing  the  weekly  hours  of  work  practically  allows  for 
this  possibility  by  giving  a  range  of  2<L  hours  in  each  group.  It 
seems  that  of  the  26,000  workpeople  employed  by  firms  giving 
information  as  to  hours,  16  per  cent  were  employed  45  and  under 
47!  hours  a  week,  31  per  cent  were  employed  47^  and  under  50 
hours,  31  per  cent  were  employed  50  and  under  52*  hours,  17  per 
cent  were  employed  52^  and  under  55  hours,  2  per  cent  were  em- 
ployed 55  and  under  57!  hours,  and  3  per  cent  were  employed 
57!  hours  and  upwards.  As  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  last 
group  were  men,  the  hours  could  in  their  case,  if  they  chose,  ex- 
ceed the  limit  of  60  hours  imposed  on  women  and  young  persons. 

It  will  be  seen  from 'the  accompanying  table  that  on  the  whole 
the  later  the  work  begins  the  shorter  the  hours  that  are  worked. 

In  the  E.G.  district  8  per  cent  of  the  workpeople  began  work 
at  8  o'clock;  27  per  cent  at  8.30;  5  per  cent  at  8.45  ;  and  60 
per  cent  at  9  o'clock. 

In  the  W.  and  S.W.  district  I  per  cent  began  work  at  8  o'clock; 
49  per  cent  began  at  8.30  ;  29  per  cent  at  8.45  ;  and  21  per  cent 
at  9  o'clock. 

In  the  N.  E.  and  N.  district  24  per  cent  began  work  at  8  o'clock ; 
52  per  cent  at  8.30;  2  per  cent  at  8.45  ;  and  22  per  cent  at 
9  o'clock. 

In  East  London  47  per  cent  began  at  8  o'clock;  41  per  cent 
at  8.30;  and  12  per  cent  at  9  o'clock. 


CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT         653 


TABLE  SHOWING  (A)  THE  NUMBER  AND  (B)  THE  PERCENTAGE 
OF  WORKPEOPLE  BEGINNING  WORK  AT  DIFFERENT  HOURS, 
AND  THE  NUMBER  OF  HOURS  WORKED  BY  THEM  PER  WEEK 


WORKING  HOURS  PER  WEEK 

NUMBER  EMPLOYED  BEGINNING  WORK  AT 

(EXCLUDING  MEALTIMES) 

8 

8.30 

8.45  to  8.55 

9 

Total 

Under  45      

-3Q 

9 

7 

W1 

45  and  under  47^  .... 

— 

1,287 

250 

2,587 

4,2242 

47^  and  under  50  . 

394 

3'005 

809 

3,893 

8,101 

50  and  under  52^.     .     .     . 

712 

3,430 

1789 

1,99° 

7,921 

52^  and  under  55  .     .     .     . 

192 

i  >932 

489 

1,692 

4,305 

55  and  under  57^.     .     •     • 

279 

329 

— 

— 

608 

57$  and  upwards  .... 

780 

8 

— 

— 

788 

Total     

2357 

10,021 

3346 

10,169 

26,oo41,2 

PERCENTAGE  WORKING  DIFFERENT  PERIODS  PER  WEEK 

WORKING  HOURS  PER  WEEK 

BEGINNING  WORK   AT 

8 

8.30 

8.45  to  8.55 

9 

Total 

Under  45      

45  and  under  47^  .... 



13 

8 

25 

16 

47^  and  under  50  . 

17 

3° 

24 

38 

31 

50  and  under  52^  .... 

30 

34 

53 

20 

31 

52^  and  under  55  .... 

8 

19 

15 

17 

17 

55  and  under  57!  .     .     .     . 

12 

4 

— 

— 

2 

57^  and  upwards  .... 

33 

— 

— 

— 

3 

Total     

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

Percentage  beginningWork 

at  the  Different  Times    . 

9 

39 

13 

39 

IOO 

The  "number  of  hours  worked  per  week  was  on  the  whole  less 
in  the  E.G.  district  than  elsewhere. 

In  the  E.G.  district  64  per  cent  worked  less  than  fifty  hours  per 
week ;  in  the  N.E.  and  N.  district  44  per  cent ;  in  the  W.  and 
S.W.  district  32^  per  cent ;  in  the  E.  district  8  per  cent ;  in  the 
other  districts  49  per  cent. 

Only  5  per  cent  worked  more  than  fifty-five  hours  in  the  E.G. 
district ;  less  than  ^  per  cent  in  the  W.  and  S.W.  district ;  7  per 

1  Including  1 1  beginning  at  9.30. 

2  Including  100  beginning  at  9  in  winter  and  earlier  in  summer. 


654 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


TABLE  SHOWING  THE  NUMBER  OF  HOURS  WORKED  PER  WEEK 
IN   DIFFERENT  DISTRICTS 


NUMBER  OF  WORKPEOPLE  EMPLOYED  IN  DISTRICT  BY  FIRMS  GIVING 

HOURS  WORKED  PER 

INFORMATION 

MEALTIMES) 

E.G. 

w.  &  s.w. 

N.E.&N. 

E. 

Other 

Total 

Under  45  ... 

7 

5° 

— 

— 

— 

57 

45  and  under  47^ 

2,228 

804 

1092 

— 

100 

4,224 

47  1  and  under  50 

5."5 

22OI 

375 

64 

346 

8,101 

50  and  under  52  J 

2,222 

3969 

1347 

95 

288 

7,921 

52^  and  under  55 

1.342 

2341 

308 

194 

1  20 

4.3°5 

55  and  under  57  J 

136 

27 

220 

175 

5° 

608 

57  £  and  upwards 

467 

6 

ii 

293 

ii 

788 

Total      .     . 

ii.  51? 

9398 

3353 

821 

9i5 

26,004 

cent  in  the  N.E.  and  N.  district;  57  per  cent  in  the  E.  district; 
7  per  cent  in  the  other  districts.  As  already  stated,  those  em- 
ployed for  so  large  a  number  of  hours  included  a  considerable 
proportion  of  men. 

The  underclothing  and  infants'  millinery  trades  show  the  short- 
est hours  worked  per  week. 

A  considerable  number  of  workpeople  employed  in  the  embroid- 
ery firms  are  engaged  on  other  work  than  embroidery,  military 
tailoring  accounting  for  the  number  employed  more  than  fifty-five 

TABLE   SHOWING  THE  PERCENTAGE  OF  WORKPEOPLE  IN  THE 
TRADES  WORKING  DIFFERENT  AMOUNTS   PER  WEEK 


COSTUMES, 

UNDER- 

. 

NUMBER  OF  HOURS  WORKED  PER 
WEEK  (EXCLUDING  MEALTIMES) 

BLOUSES, 
SKIRTS  AND 
MANTLES 

CLOTHING 

AND 

INFANTS' 

MILLINERY 

CORSETS 

EM- 
BROIDERY 

LADIES' 
MILLINERY 

Under  47  j  

I  c 

•3-5 

IO 

IO 

12 

47  \  and  under  50      ... 

29 

37 

8 

44 

40 

50  and  under  52^      .     .     . 

32 

25 

78 

19 

22 

52^  and  under  55      .     .     . 

18 

5 

4 

13 

26 

55  and  under  57^      .     .     . 

2 

— 

— 

M 

— 

57j  and  upwards       .     .     . 

4 

— 

— 

— 

— 

Total    

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT         655 

hours.  The  inquiry  was  not  intended  to  cover  any  branches  of 
men's  clothing,  but  it  was  impossible  to  judge  beforehand  whether 
the  embroidery  done  was  restricted  to  one  branch  or  the  other,  or 
was  even  connected  with  clothing  at  all.  All  firms  visited  employing 
embroiderers  have  been  included  in  the  table. 

Overtime.  Young  persons  under  eighteen  years  of  age  are  not 
permitted  in  any  circumstances  to  work  beyond  the  ordinary  period 
allowed  by  law. 

In  all  cases  the  employers  stated  that  if  young  persons  during 
the  busy  seasons  were  detained  for  the  full  legal  period,  they  were 
paid  for  overtime  if  time  workers. 

Seasonal  fluctuations.  The  women's  clothing  trades  are,  of 
course,  liable  to  seasonal  fluctuations,  but  the  ready-made  branches 
are  less  affected  by  these  than  the  private-custom  trade,  in  which 
the  fluctuations  are  also  accentuated  by  changes  of  fashion  and 
by  special  events.  The  use  of  machinery,  besides  necessitating 
a  larger  capital  and  therefore  bringing  into  the  trade  a  different 
class  of  employer,  is  an  incentive  towards  regular  production.  The 
manufacturers  do  not  acquiesce  in  the  waste  of  capital  arising  from 
the  standstill  of  their  machinery,  and  they  therefore  aim  more  and 
more  at  filling  up  the  slack  season  of  one  branch  by  manufactur- 
ing other  kinds  of  clothing  in  demand  at  different  seasons. 

Fluctuations  of  employment  on  the  employer's  premises  are 
also  much  reduced  by  the  common  custom  of  giving  out  work  to 
be  done  by  home  workers  during  the  busy  season.  These  home 
workers  are  frequently  married  women  who  have  previously  worked 
in  the  factory  or  workshop. 

Except  in  the  ladies'  millinery  branch,  in  which  employers  in 
many  cases  frankly  admit  that  their  works  are  closed  for  consider- 
able periods,  there  was  a  tendency  on  their  part  to  minimize  the 
amount  of  slackness.  Employers  with  100  workpeople-  at  one 
period  and  65  at  another  would  say  that  they  never  dismissed  any- 
one and  that  they  always  tried  to  retain  competent  workers.  The 
explanation  of  the  discrepancy  between  this  statement  of  fact  and 
the  figures  was  generally  that  pieceworkers  in  slack  times  went 
of  their  own  accord,  being  unable  to  earn  enough  to  make  it  worth 
while  attending. 


656 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


The  following  table  shows  the  percentage  in  each  trade  em- 
ployed by  firms  admitting  slackness  in  certain  months  : 

PERCENTAGE  OF  THE  TOTAL  NUMBER  WHO  WERE  EMPLOYED 

BY  FIRMS  AFFECTED   BY  SLACKNESS   DURING  THE  WHOLE  OR 

PART  OF  A  SPECIFIED  MONTH 


MONTH 

COSTUMES,  BLOUSES, 
MANTLES.AND  SKIRTS 

UNDER- 
CLOTHING 

INFANTS' 
MILLI- 
NERY 

EMBROID- 
ERY 

LADIES' 
MILLI- 
NERY 

Firms  manu- 
facturing for 
wholesale  or 
retail  firms 

Retail  firms 
manufactur- 
ing for 
themselves 

10 
4 

5 
19 
16 

23 
7 
6 
16 
31 

65 
54 
1  1 
i 
i 
i 
4 
93 
15 

5i 

52 

JS 

15 

'5 

2 

'5 
3 

2 

5 
29 
19 
5 
5 
5° 
56 
35 

5 
5 
i 

2 

•    16 

33 

22 

6 

i 
9 

22 

I 

4 

12 

57 
69 
29 

3 
16 

55 
77 

March         

April       

May  

June             

July    . 

August  

September  
October      

November  

December  

Not  affected  by  seasonal  "1 
slackness   J 

47 

— 

45 

8 

56 

i 

Total  employed  by  firms  ~] 
giving  definite  informa-  > 
tion  as  to  slack  periods  J 

10,075 

6420 

1611 

767 

855 

2137 

These  figures  give  a  rough  indication  of  the  months  in  which 
inefficient  workers  in  these  trades  may  be  earning  little  or  noth- 
ing, but  of  course  give  no  information  as  to  the  extent  to  which 
they  are  affected. 

During  1909  and  1910,  wholesale  firms  in  the  costume,  blouse, 
mantle,  and  skirt  trades,  employing  on  the  average  2353  work- 
people in  1910,  supplied  particulars  of  the  numbers  employed  at 
the  end  of  each  month  to  the  Board  of  Trade.  Retail  firms,  em- 
ploying on  the  average  1837  workpeople  in  1910,  supplied  similar 
particulars.  Five  firms  in  the  underclothing  and  infants'  millinery 


CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT         657 

trades,  employing  468  workpeople  on  the  average  in  1910,  and 
seven  in  the  ladies'  millinery  trades,  employing  328  workpeople 
on  the  average  in  1910,  have  also  made  returns,  and  although 
the  numbers  employed  by  them  are  small,  they  may  be  useful  as 
indications  of  seasonal  effects. 

In  the  following  table  the  average  number  employed  in  the 
twelve  weeks  in  each  year  for  which  returns  were  made  is  repre- 
sented by  100 : 


TABLE  SHOWING  THE  NUMBER  OF  WORKPEOPLE  PAID  WAGES  IN  THE  LAST 
PAY  WEEK  OR  OTHER  ORDINARY  WEEK  IN  EACH  MONTH  OF  1909  AND  1910  BY 
FIRMS   FURNISHING  RETURNS,   EXPRESSED  AS  PERCENTAGES  OF  THE  AVER- 
AGE WEEKLY  NUMBER  EMPLOYED 


MONTH 

COSTUMES,  BLOUSES, 
MANTLES,  AND  SKIRTS 

UNDERCLOTH- 
ING AND 
INFANTS' 
MILLINERY 

LADIES' 
MILLINERY 

Wholesale 
firms 

Retail 
firms 

1909 

1910 

1909 

1910 

1909 

1910 

1909 

1910 

January     
February  

93 
104 
107 
105 
1  08 

IOI 

90 
92 
1  06 
104 
96 
94 

97 
109 

1  08 

«>S 

105 

IOO 

89 
93 

IOI 

99 
98 
96 

91 
91 
98 
I03 
1  06 
107 
1  06 

61 

103 

H3 
114 
107 

95 
90 

103 

no 

IIO 

no 
103 
56 

102 
I  O6 
III 

IO4 

94 
96 

95 
90 
98 
i°5 
99 
104 
103 

99 
1  06 
no 

I07 
92 
94 
93 
98 

99 
97 

IOI 

106 
103 
103 
105 

117 
I23 
1  2O 
123 
126 
87 
85 
98 
126 
84 
57 
54 

116 

135 
133 
127 
82 
62 
64 

IIO 

126 
117 
70 
59 

March  

April    

May      

June     

July. 

August      

September     

October    

November     

December     

Average  weekly  number      .     . 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

Percentage    increase   or   deO 
crease  in  average  in  1910  I 
on    average    number    em-  f 
ployed  in  1909                      j 

- 

+  2.9 

- 

+  2.6 

- 

+28.9 

- 

-4.2 

If  these  monthly  returns  be  compared  with  the  preceding  table 
showing  months  in  which  firms  were  affected  by  slackness,  it  will 
be  seen  that  they  tally  very  closely  in  the  costume,  blouse,  mantle, 


658  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

and  skirt  trades  in  both  branches ;  such  discrepancies  as  appear 
at  first  sight  are  explained  by  the  facts  that  the  first  table  refers 
to  "  some  period  of  the  month  "  and  the  latter  to  either  the  third 
or  fourth  week  of  the  month,  and  that  employers  do  not  dismiss 
at  once  when  a  decline  begins  and  must  take  on  workpeople  in 
preparation  for  an  expected  pressure. 

There  is  no  such  agreement  in  the  case  of  the  underclothing 
and  infants'  millinery  trades,  and  this  is  no  doubt  due  to  the  fact 
that  these  trades  are  far  less  affected  by  the  seasons  than  by 
peculiarities  in  the  trade  of  each  firm. 

In  the  case  of  the  ladies'  millinery  trade  the  two  tables  confirm 
each  other  when  the  facts  noted  in  the  case  of  the  costume  etc. 
trades  are  remembered.  In  May,  1910,  there  was  an  unusual 
slackness  due  to  the  death  of  the  late  king. 

It  will  be  seen  that  in  the  ladies'  millinery  trade  for  five  months 
in  the  year  the  numbers  employed  are  less  than  three  fourths  of 
the  numbers  employed  in  the  busy  season,  and  that  in  some  months 
they  are  much  lower  still.  A  mediocre  worker  in  this  trade  must 
expect  to  be  "given  holidays"  for  about  three  to  five  months  in 
the  year. 

These  returns  only  indicate  the  fluctuations  in  numbers  em- 
ployed ;  the  fluctuations  in  the  amounts  of  wages  paid  would  vary 
considerably  more  in  those  trades  where  the  greater  proportion 
are  on  piecework. 

The  Board  of  Trade  report  on  Earnings  and  Hours  of  Labor 
in  1906  gives  tables  bringing  out  this  fact.  The  fluctuations  in 
numbers  and  amounts  of  wages  of  workpeople  employed  on 
"  Dress,  Millinery,  etc.  (Factory)  "  and  "  Shirts,  Blouses,  Under- 
clothing, etc."  in  London  in  that  year  are  given  below.  Except  in 
the  ladies'  millinery  trade,  employers  generally  stated  that  learners 
were  always  retained  and  paid  their  full-time  wage  during  the 
slack  season. 

No  special  reference  has  been  made  in  this  report  to  the  condi- 
tions of  employment  in  the  corset  trade.  The  ready-made  corset 
is  manufactured  mainly  in  certain  provincial  towns.  One  large 
firm  in  London  nevers  employs  learners  and  was  not  included  in 
the  list  of  firms  giving  information.  With  the  exception  of  one 


CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT         659 

firm  employing  a  considerable  number  the  information  relating  to 
corset  makers  was  found  to  deal  very  largely  with  firms  manufac- 
turing for  private  customers.  This  was  especially  the  case  in  East 
London  and  South  London. 


TOTAL  NUMBER  OF  WORKPEOPLE  PAID  WAGES,  AND  AMOUNT  OF  WAGES  PAID, 
IN  THE  LAST  PAY  WEEK  OR  OTHER  ORDINARY  WEEK  IN  EACH  MONTH  OF 
1906  BY  LONDON  FIRMS  FURNISHING  RETURNS,  EXPRESSED  AS  PERCENTAGES 
OF  THE  AVERAGE  WEEKLY  NUMBER  EMPLOYED  AND  THE  AVERAGE  WEEKLY 
WAGES  BILL  RESPECTIVELY 


MONTH 

DRESS,  MILLINERY,  BTC. 
(FACTORY) 

SHIRTS,  BLOUSES,  UNDER- 
CLOTHING, ETC. 

Number 
employed 

Wages  paid 

Number 
employed 

Wages  paid 

January     

98.4 

107-3 
110.4 
107.4 
101.7 
92.4 
88.1 
94-o 

IIO.I 

i°5-7 
94-o 
90.5 

£ 
93-4 
113.6 
115.2 
111.5 
100.9 
89.2 
89.8 
91.9 
119.6 
109.5 
87.1 
78-3 

99.6 
101.9 

IO2.6 

101.9 
101.5 

IOO.2 
97-0 
97.6 
IOO.4 
100-3 

99-3 

97-7 

£ 
98.2 

103-5 
105.6 
104.8 
105.6 

99-5 
96.8 
96.8 
101.8 
97-5 
93-8 
96.1 

February  

March  

April    

May      

June      

July. 

August      

September    

October    

November     

December     

Weekly  average  expressed  as 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

Actual  weekly  average   .     .     . 

2389 

1800 

8066 

6004 

Prospects  of  promotion  in  the  trades.  In  the  preceding  sections 
attention  has  been  paid  to  the  prospects  of  the  girl  of  middling 
ability,  the  question  of  wages  and  regularity  of  employment  being 
of  the  most  importance  in  her  case.  But  another  point  of  view 
must  be  considered  in  choosing  a  trade  for  girls  with  marked 
ability  or  individuality  or  capacity  for  leadership.  The  women's 
clothing  trades  offer  more  prospect  to  women  in  mature  years  than 
any  other  carried  on  on  a  large  scale.  The  ready-made  branch 
needs  women  with  the  capacity  for  organizing  the  work  of  large 
numbers,  to  a  greater  extent  than  is  required  in  the  smaller  firms 


66o  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

manufacturing  for  private  customers,  where  greater  artistic  ability 
may  generally  be  necessary  but  less  attention  need  be  paid  to 
economy  of  production.  The  woman  who  makes  girls  enthusiastic 
over  their  work  has  a  place  in  these  industries  not  readily  if  at  all 
obtainable  in  industries  in  which  the  management  of  the  work- 
rooms is  generally  in  men's  hands.  It  is  only  in  industries 
supplying  women's  needs  that  women  are  to  be  found  in  con- 
siderable numbers  as  employers,  managers,  or  head  overlookers 
of  workrooms. 

In  order  to  compare  the  prospects  of  women  of  mature  years  in 
the  ready-made  women's  clothing  trades  we  may  note  that  in  the 
Board  of  Trade  returns  for  the  former  group 1  for  the  United 
Kingdom  there  were  211  foremen  and  1021  forewomen.  In  the 
ready-made  tailoring  group  there  were  411  foremen  and  187  fore- 
women. In  the  ready-made  women's  clothing  group  there  were 
1075  men  cutters  and  919  women  cutters ;  in  the  ready-made 
tailoring  group  there  were  no  women  cutters  at  all.  The  women 
cutters  do  not  earn  high  rates  compared  with  the  men,  being 
employed  on  lighter  work,  but  any  girl  who  has  any  special  gift 
for  design  or  management  can  pass  on  to  higher  paid  work. 

Although  the  ready-made  women's  clothing  trades  offer  few 
great  prizes  compared  with  the  West  End  private  custom  dress- 
making and  millinery  trades,  to  the  rank  and  file  it  offers  better 
conditions  in  the  first  eight  or  nine  years  after  leaving  the  elemen- 
tary schools ;  more  wages  can  be  earned  and  work  is  more  regu- 
lar. The  hours  of  work  in  the  city  are,  on  the  whole,  shorter  than 
those  in  the  West  End  private  dressmaker's  workshop,  and  the 
workroom  accommodation  is  often  better.  Moreover,  mediocrity 
finds  a  more  secure  place  in  the  ready-made  trades  in  later  life 
than  it  does  in  the  private-custom  trade. 

Besides  the  tendency  already  mentioned  for  owners  of  power- 
driven  machinery  to  endeavor  to  utilize  their  plant  in  the  slack 
season  of  one  branch  by  adopting  another  with  a  different  season, 
it  should  also  be  noted  that  the  ready-made  trades  catering  for  the 
middle  and  working  classes  are  liable  to  much  less  violent  fluctua- 
tions of  fashion  than  the  West  End  private-custom  trades ;  and 

1  Including  also  men's  shirt  making. 


CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT         66 1 

that  whereas  the  upper  classes  have  more  clothing  than  they  need, 
the  working  classes  have  not  yet  reached  a  satisfactory  minimum 
in  this  respect.  Everything  therefore  points  to  an  increased 
development  in  the  ready-made  branches  of  the  trade. 

Trade  schools  and  trade  classes.  The  detailed  reports  contain 
particulars  of  the  methods  adopted  by  different  firms  of  training 
learners.  In  some  cases  learners  are  taught  by  someone  especially 
in  charge  of  a  "  learners'  table  "  ;  sometimes  by  the  forewoman ; 
sometimes  by  an  experienced  time-worker  ;  sometimes  by  a  piece- 
worker who  is  allowed  a  certain  share  of  the  piece-rate  value  of 
the  learner's  work ;  sometimes  a  learner  is  left  to  pick  up  experi- 
ence with  the  aid  of  an  experienced  pieceworker  sitting  next  to 
her,  who  receives  no  remuneration  for  the  trouble  so  far  as  the 
employer  is  concerned. 

Many  employers  will  take  no  machinists  who  have  not  already 
had  experience  elsewhere.  Several  employers  who  have  taught 
girls  machining  complain  that  as  soon  as  they  have  become  skilled, 
they  have  been  attracted  to  employers  who  offer  higher  wages  but 
have  not  gone  to  the  trouble  and  expense  of  training. 

In  many  cases  machinery  was  standing  idle,  not  for  want  of 
orders  but  for  want  of  skilled  machinists.  There  was  great  com- 
plaining that  many  of  the  machinists  who  had  to  be  engaged  in 
the  season  were  incompetent. 

The  employers  were  unanimous  in  placing  cleanliness  and  gen- 
eral intelligence  first  as  the  essential  requisites  for  a  good  machinist. 

But  barely  3  per  cent  attached  any  value  to  trade  schools  or 
trade  teaching,  or  seemed  to  be  aware  that  general  intelligence 
cannot  receive  much  development  from  a  purely  specialized  and 
mechanical  experience. 

The  indifference  to  the  teaching  offered  in  the  trade  schools 
must  not  be  mistaken  for  a  criticism  of  this  teaching.  Hardly  any 
of  the  employers  had  any  personal  knowledge  of  it,  and  as  there 
is  only  one  London  County  Council  trade  school  which  h.as  given 
trade  teaching  specially  intended  for  girls  entering  the  ready-made 
women's  clothing  trade,  this  is  not  surprising.  During  the  five 
years  that  the  Shoreditch  Technical  Institute  has  given  this  training, 
73  girls  have  gone  into  these  trades.  One  employer  stated  that  she 


662  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

would  not  use  the  labor  exchanges,  as  she  obtained  all  her  learners 
from  the  Shoreditch  Institute  and  found  them  most  satisfactory. 

As  nearly  all  the  employers  were  ignorant  of  the  advantages 
possible  from  good  trade  teaching,  it  followed  as  a  matter  of  course 
that  very  few  expressed  a  willingness  to  give  time  off  for  attend- 
ance. But  it  must  also  be  noted  that  the  few  employers  who  had 
given  time  off  had  not  found  the  experiment  a  success. 

Slack-season  classes.  During  the  latter  part  of  the  inquiry  em- 
ployers were  asked  whether  they  thought  slack-season  classes  would 
be  useful.  The  suggestion  was  received  more  favorably  than  the 
proposal  that  girls  should  be  allowed  time  off,  doubts,  however, 
being  expressed  as  to  the  willingness  of  girls  to  spend  their  slack 
time  in  this  manner. 

The  provision  of  courses  of  teaching  given  during  the  day  and 
lasting  for  about  four  weeks,  for  girls  already  in  the  trade,  might 
possibly  show  better  results  than  are  possible  in  evening  classes 
held  once  or  twice  a  week  for  a  whole  session.  The  workshop 
experience  would  enable  the  girl  to  acquire  rapidity  of  execution, 
and  the  change  to  the  classroom  might  be  mentally  recreative.  The 
incompetent  worker  who  is  dismissed  when  slackness  sets  in  could 
improve  herself  while  looking  for  work,  and  if  the  slack-season 
classes  were  connected  with  the  Labor  Exchange,  she  could  give  all 
her  attention  to  becoming  competent  instead  of  looking  for  work. 

Apart  from  the  provision  of  trade  teaching,  another  aspect  of 
this  question  is  of  public  importance.  A  large  number  of  women 
in  these  trades  employ  one  or  two  young  girls  as  learners  to  assist 
them  in  their  homes  in  making  up  work  given  out  to  them  by  the 
larger  manufacturers  or  on  private-custom  work.  In  many  cases 
the  women  are  employed  on  a  low  class  of  work  on  which  a  learner 
can  receive  little  experience  of  a  thorough  kind.  Some  system  is 
needed  by  which  anyone  who  employs  juvenile  labor  at  a  learner's 
rate  of  pay  should  have  to  give  evidence  of  competence  to  teach. 
Much  of  the  inefficiency  of  girls  in  the  clothing  trades  is  due  to 
their  having  been  trained  by  incompetent  employers. 

Arrangements  for  meals.  The  question  of  the  arrangements 
made  for  meals  is  an  important  one  when  girls  are  to  be  placed 
in  employment. 


CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT         663 

The  following  table  shows  the  provision  made  by  employers 
for  their  workpeople  in  this  respect  in  the  E.G.  and  West  End 
districts : 


NUMBER  OF  WORKPEOPLE  GROUPED  ACCORDING  TO  THE 
ARRANGEMENTS   FOR  MEALS 


MEALS  PUR- 

PROVISION 

MAY  HAVE 

MUST  HAVE 

VAGUE  OR 

DISTRICT 

CHASABLE 

MADE   FOR 

MEALS  IN 

MEALS 

NO  IN- 

TOTAL 

PREMISES 

FOOD 

WORKROOM 

OUTSIDE 

FORMATION 

EC 

14.71 

C4.QO 

1671 

2817 

2118 

1  1,1:7  1 

W.  and  S.W.     . 

1982 

6560 

5°9 

840 

659 

10,550 

More  than  one  fifth  of  those  employed  in  the  E.G.  district  must 
go  out  for  meals,  and  if  to  these  we  add  those  for  whom  no  pro- 
vision is  made  for  heating  food,  we  find  one  third  obliged  to  go 
out  for  it.  In  the  E.G.  district  1 1  per  cent  are  catered  for  by  their 
employers,  and  in  the  West  End  19  per  cent.  But  according  to 
the  employers  the  majority  of  their  workpeople  prefer  to  bring 
their  own  food  and  heat  it  on  the  premises  to  buying  the  food 
provided  for  them  by  the  firm.  In  the  E.G.  district  40  per  cent 
and  in  the  West  End  62  per  cent  can  adopt  this  plan  in  prefer- 
ence to  going  out  for  dinner. 

In  the  other  districts  a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  workpeople 
live  near  their  work,  and  the  absence  of  provision  for  them  is  of 
less  importance. 

Number  employed  in  the  trades  in  London.  The  Factory  Re- 
turns for  Nontextile  Factories  in  London,  1907,  giving  details 
for  each  borough,  have  been  kindly  furnished  by  the  Home 
Office.  The  trades  under  review  are  included  in  three  groups  : 
(i)  Millinery,  mantle,  corset,  and  dressmaking;  (2)  Aprons, 
pinafores,  and  blouses ;  and  (3)  "  Other  articles  of  clothing," 
which  includes  miscellaneous  articles  of  men's  clothing  not  sepa- 
rately classified. 

The  returns  for  workshops  cannot  distinguish  between  those 
engaged  on  private-custom  work  and  those  engaged  on  ready- 
made  work  except  in  the  group  for  "Aprons,  pinafores,  blouses." 


664 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


NUMBER  OF  PERSONS  EMPLOYED  IN  WOMEN'S  CLOTHING 
FACTORIES  (LONDON,  1907) 


FEMALES 

MALES 

TRADE 

Under 

16  and 
under 

iSand 
up- 

TOTAL 

Under 

1  6  and 
under 

18  and 
up- 

TOTAL 

18 

wards 

18 

wards 

All  Districts 

Millinery,  mantle,  corset, 

and  dressmaking  .     .     . 

780 

995 

6,064 

7,839 

28 

35 

767 

830 

Aprons,  pinafores,  blouses 

3°4 

393 

2,027 

2,724 

6 

21 

135 

162 

"  Other  clothing  trades  "  1 

445 

558 

2,829 

3,832 

49 

49 

559 

657 

Total  

I  C.2Q 

1046 

IO,Q2O 

j  .  ,„- 

g~ 

105 

1461 

1640 

MILLINERY,  MANTLE,  CORSET,  AND  DRESSMAKING,  APRONS, 

DISTRICT 

PINAFORES,  BLOUSES,  AND  "OTHER  CLOTHING"* 

City  

247 

-106 

2>595 

1  238 

21 

12 

474 

487 

Finsbury    

-3QQ 

•164 

1,066 

I  e 

28 

20  1 

Rest  of  North  London 

352 

1,770 

2,433 

12 

19 

3°5 

336 

South  London     .... 

114 

'54 

722 

990 

5 

I 

95 

IOI 

West  London      .... 

314 

331 

1,922 

2,567 

2 

3 

87 

92 

East  London  

214 

^4Q 

i,u8 

2,IOI 

28 

22 

24Q 

2QO 

Total  

oty 

I  529 

1946 

10,920 

14,395 

83 

105 

1461 

1649 

NUMBER   OF   PERSONS    EMPLOYED    IN  WORKSHOPS    IN   1907  ON 
APRONS,   PINAFORES,   BLOUSES 


"EMALES 

MALES 

DISTRICT 

Under 
16 

1  6  and 
under 
18 

1  8  and 
up- 
wards 

TOTAL 

Under 
16 

16  and 
under 
18 

18  and 
up- 
wards 

TOTAL 

City  

IOO 

127 

I  I  21 

11  CO 

*> 

6c 

76 

Finsbury     

Q2 

IOO 

A"71 

665 

-3 

4S 

48  ' 

Rest  of  North  London 
South  London     .... 
West  London      .... 
East  London  

44 
96 

83 

22 

49 
in 

134 
10 

236 
300 
560 
I  2  C 

329 

507 

777 

177 

I 
I 

I 

I 
I 

1 

I 

2 
I 

4 

London  

4-17 

cei 

2817 

1801; 

I  1 

1  1  r 

I  \2 

1  Excluding  tailoring,  boots  and  shoes,  hats  and  caps,  shirts  and  linen  collars,  and  includ- 
ing miscellaneous  articles  of  men's  clothing  not  separately  classified. 


CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT         665 

The  factories  in  1907  employed,  therefore,  about  16,000  work- 
people ;  and  although  in  the  three  years  which  have  elapsed  since 
the  return  was  made  there  must  have  been  a  considerable  increase 
in  the  number  of  factories  and  a  corresponding  decline  in  the 
number  employed  in  workshops  on  the  lower  class  of  work,  it  is 
obvious  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  30,000  employed  by  the 
firms  visited  are  employed  in  workshops  where  power  is  not  used. 
In  the  West  End  high-class-trade  handwork  is,  to  a  great  extent, 
the  rule. 


CONDITIONS  OF  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  IN  THE 

BOOKBINDING  AND  STATIONERY  TRADES  (GIRLS) 

IN  LONDON,  OCTOBER,  1911  — MARCH,  1912 

BY  Miss  COLLET,  SENIOR  INVESTIGATOR  FOR  WOMEN'S  INDUSTRIES 

(Report  on  inquiry  communicated  by  the  Board  of  Trade  to   the  London 

Advisory  Committee  for  Juvenile  Employment  for  use  in  connection  with  the 

Juvenile  Section  of  the  London  Labor  Exchanges,  November,  1912) 

The  numbers  of  persons  employed  in  the  County  of  London, 
according  to  the  factory  and  workshop  returns  made  for  1907,  in 
the  various  trades  connected  with  paper  and  printing  are  shown 
in  the  table  on  page  667. 

Of  these  trades  the  various  branches  of  the  stationery  trades, 
the  bookbinding  trades,  and  the  printing  trades  were  selected  for 
inquiry.  This  report  only  deals  with  women  and  girls  in  the  sta- 
tionery and  bookbinding  trades,  the  information  with  regard  to 
boys  being  reserved  for  a  report  on  the  printing  and  bookbinding 
trades.  Workshops  were  not  included  in  the  inquiry. 

Of  the  2587  returns  from  factories,  many  related  to  branches 
only  of  works  for  which  two  or  more  separate  returns  were  made, 
and  the  great  majority  of  the  returns  for  bookbinding  and  machine 
ruling  were  returns  for  very  small  branches  of  works  making  other 
returns  and  included  in  the  printing  trades. 

Information  was  obtained  from  100  firms  engaged  in  bookbind- 
ing or  stationery  manufacture,  and  these  100  firms  employed  over 
17,000  persons  out  of  the  27,000  persons  included  in  returns  for 
697  works  or  departments  in  1907.  Two  or  three  large  book- 
binding works  were  visited  by  the  investigators  for  the  printing 
trade,  two  or  three  large  stationery  works  were  not  visited  for  special 
reasons,  and  five  firms  refused  information.  With  these  excep- 
tions the  bookbinding  and  stationery  works  left  unvisited  employed 
less  than  twenty  persons  in  1907. 

666 


BOOKBINDING  AND  STATIONERY  TRADES         667 


PAPER,  PRINTING,  AND  STATIONERY  TRADES 
(COUNTY  OF  LONDON) 


WORKS 
OF  DE- 
PART- 
MENTS 

BRANCH  OF 
TRADE 

MALE  PERSONS  EMPLOYED 

FEMALE  PERSONS  EMPLOYED 

Under 
16 

i6and 
under 
18 

18  and 
upwards 

Total 
(males) 

Under 
16 

16  and 
under 
18 

iSand 
upwards 

Total 
(females) 

A.  IN  FACTORIES 


3 

Paper  making  .... 

i 

— 

28 

29 





32 

32 

490 

Bookbinding    and    ma- 

chine ruling  .... 

560 

677 

6,648 

7,885 

1,384 

I,5°3 

7,621 

10,508 

1,264 

Letterpress  printing 

2*84 

2,669 

29,56/ 

34,720 

493 

560 

2,841 

3,894 

227 

Lithographic  printing   . 

253 

329 

2,80  I 

3,383 

251 

329 

829 

i  ,409 

142 

Engraving    and    photo- 

graphic processes  .     . 

243 

299 

2,149 

2,691 

127 

289 

525 

941 

2C 

Diesinking  

7 

24 

174 

201 

10 

•> 

18 

71 

j 
13° 

Type     and     stereotype 

T 

1  /  "T 

j 

J 

J1 

founding  

08 

121 

1.^14 

j,7H 

ii 

46 

61 

118 

25 

Paper  staining,  coloring, 

•y\j 

•*O 

*O  *T- 

,/  j  j 

T' 

and  enameling  .     .     . 

251 

I25 

835 

1,211 

16 

16 

81 

"3 

JC 

Cardboard    

C7 

68 

727 

448 

106 

98 

7O2 

qo6 

J 

42 

Envelope  making      .     . 

j  / 

43 

37 

J    J 

444 

f  f  v 

524 

298 

"v 

215 

jv*- 

1,481 

^w 

1,994 

71 

Cardboard-box  making  . 

36 

53 

457 

546 

332 

368 

1,798 

2,498 

31 

Paper-bag  making     .     . 

12 

20 

J3° 

162 

62 

63 

406 

53i 

122 

Other  articles  of  station- 

ery, etc  

203 

121 

1,130 

1*454 

609 

462 

i,  806 

2,877 

rt  JT 

•f**/f 

2,<;87 

Total     

ji  2<l8 

4  ?4^ 

46,200 

sA.QQI 

1.600 

1  QS2 

17  801 

2C  A  C2 

•*•?.)"/ 

^J    T 

T,JT  J 

J^17yJ 

J,    7:7 

jiyj* 

^D»4D^ 

B.  IN  WORKSHOPS 


— 

Paper  making  .... 

— 



— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

23 

Bookbinding    and    ma- 

chine ruling  .... 

30 

22 

61 

113 

35 

7 

36 

78 

— 

Letterpress  printing 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

9 

Lithographic  printing   . 

H 

8 

98 

120 

— 

3 

21 

24 

J3i 

Engraving   and    photo- 

graphic processes  .     . 

101 

103 

623 

827 

35 

65 

297 

397 

3 

Diesinking        .... 

2 

— 

4 

6 

— 

— 

9 

9 

— 

Type     and     stereotype 

founding  

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

i 

Paper    staining,    color- 

ing, and  enameling    . 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

— 

2 

2 

2 

Cardboard    

3 

i 

8 

12 

i 



2 

4 

Envelope  making     .     . 

8 

8 

i 

4 

38 

43 

43 

Cardboard-box  making  . 

10 

21 

118 

149 

6l 

69 

472 

602 

10 

Paper-bag  making     .     . 

7 

2 

'5 

24 

7 

31 

107 

145 

133 

Other  articles  of  station- 

ery, etc 

76 

74 

467 

617 

114 

214 

785 

nil 

/  ^ 

T^/ 

j^ 

T 

/    J 

jj 

150 

Total     

241 

211 

MO2 

1876 

274 

393 

1769 

2436 

J  J7 

T  J 

j 

668 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


In  nearly  every  case  the  personal  investigation  was  carried  out 
by  Miss  Gladys  M.  Broughton,  and  her  detailed  reports  of  her 
interviews  with  employers  and  managers  have  been  supplied  to 
the  secretary  of  the  London  Juvenile  Advisory  Committee. 

Of  the  100  firms  giving  information  43  were  engaged  in  book- 
binding, 1 7  in  stationery  manufacture,  and  40  in  both  bookbinding 
and  stationery  manufacture. 

The  numbers  employed  by  the  firms  giving  information  in  the 
different  labor  exchange  areas  are  shown  below. 


LABOR-EXCHANGE 
AREA 


NUMBER  OF  PERSONS  EMPLOYED  BY 
FIRMS  GIVING  INFORMATION 


Finsbury 4,5  76 

City        3>901 

Elephant 2,512 

Hackney  and  Leyton l i  ,460 

Camden  Town 1,085 

Islington 1,020 

Clapham  Junction 1,000 

Bethnal  Green  and  Stepney 979 

Walham  Green  and  Kilburn 530 

Other  areas                    220 


PERCENTAGE 
OF  TOTAL 

26.5 
22.6 
14.5 

8.4 

6-3 

5-9 
5.8 

5-7 
3-i 

1.2 


Total 1 7,283  : 


100.0 


If  from  the  factory  returns  we  take  the  figures  for  bookbind- 
ing and  machine  ruling,  envelope  making,  and  "  other  articles  of 
stationery,  etc.,"  we  have  : 


COUNTY  OF  LONDON,  1907 


MALES 

FEMALES 

TOTAL 

Under  16    

806 

2.2QI 

•7,007 

1  6  and  under  18      

Sin 

2,180 

T,OI  C 

1  8  and  upwards  

8,222 

IO,QO8 

IQ.I  7O 

Total   

0,86-? 

I  S.'ITQ 

2  C.24.2 

Here  the  boys  under  16  are  about  8  per  cent  of  the  total  men 
and  boys,  and  the  girls  under  16  are  about  15  per  cent  of  the 
total  women  and  girls. 

1  Return  made  from  offices  in  the  city  and  included  in  County  of  London  figures. 

2  Of  these  about  10,500  were  women  and  girls. 


BOOKBINDING  AND  STATIONERY  TRADES 


669 


Firms  employing  8030  women  and  girls  and  4779  men  and 
boys  giving  information  as  to  the  number  of  learners  employed 
by  them  showed  that  969  girls  (or  1 2  per  cent  of  the  women  and 
girls)  and  606  boys  (or  13  per  cent  of  the  men  and  boys)  were 
described  as  learners. 

From  this  it  is  apparent  that  a  girl  has  passed  the  learner  stage 
by  the  time  she  is  sixteen,  while  boys  continue  in  it  to  a  much 
later  period. 

The  County  of  London  demand  in  these  trades  for  girls  on  leav- 
ing school  may  be  estimated,  judging  from  the  factory  returns  for 
1907,  at  over  1000  per  annum.  The  demand  for  boys  on  leaving 
school  would  probably  be  not  more  than  450  per  annum. 

But  notwithstanding  this  much  larger  number  of  girls  who  enter 
these  trades,  the  number  of  women  who  remain  in  them  is  much 
smaller  than  the  number  of  men.  The  census  returns  for  1911  are 
not  yet  available,  but  those  for  1901  sufficiently  show  this  fact. 
The  information  obtained  during  this  inquiry  shows  that  in  this 
respect  little  change  has  taken  place. 

COUNTY  OF  LONDON,  CENSUS  1901 
NUMBER  OF  PERSONS  OCCUPIED  AT  THREE  AGE  PERIODS 


AGE  PERIOD 

STATIONERY 
MANUFACTURE 

ENVELOPE 
MAKERS 

BOOKBINDING 

TOTAL 

Number 

Number 

Number 

Number 

Percentage 

M 

F 

M 

F 

M 

F 

M 

F 

M 

F 

368 
301 
1,267 

i,34' 
814 

725 

52 

.2? 

"5 

204 

971 
39  ' 
575 

i,°33 
9°5 
4,203 

4,178 
2,449 
3,777 

',453 
i,233 

5,595 

6,490 
3,654 
5,077 

'7-5 
14.9 
67.6 

42.6 
24.0 
33-4 

20  and  under  25  .     .     . 
25  and  upwards   .     .     . 

Total   

i.936 

2,880 

',937 

6,141 

10,404 

8,281 

15,221 

IOO 

IOO 

A  certain  number  of  errand  boys  should  no  doubt  be  added  to 
these  figures,  which,  in  consequence  of  their  exclusion  from  this 
group  in  the  census  returns,  understate  the  proportion  of  boys  who 
enter  these  trades  and  leave  them,  but  in  the  main  the  facts  are 
correctly  represented.  These  trades,  more  particularly  the  book- 
binding trade,  can  give  permanent  employment  to  the  boys  who 
enter  them,  and  require  skilled  men  for  the  bulk  of  the  men's 


670  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

work.    The  women's  work  can  be  done  as  well  by  young  women 
between  eighteen  and  twenty-five  as  by  older  women. 

The  principal  processes  in  which  women  and  girls  are  employed 
are : 

In  bookbinding 

Folding  (hand  and  machine) 

Gathering  and  collating 

Numbering 

Sewing  (hand  and  power) 

Stitching 

Gold  laying-on 

Flush  binding 
Machine  ruling 
In  stationery  manufacture 

Folding 

Gumming  or  cementing 

Black  bordering 

Relief  stamping 

Packing 

In  one  large  stationery  factory  learners  were  first  employed  as 
errand  girls  in  many  cases,  and  then  taught  one  or  other  of  the 
following  processes  :  cementing,  hand  folding,  relief  stamping, 
printing  envelopes,  machine  folding,  envelope  banding  and  pack- 
ing, label  making,  boxing  stationery,  and  black  bordering. 

Learners.  The  work,  whether  done  by  hand  or  machine,  is  all 
of  a  simple  nature,  requiring  regularity  and  steadiness  rather  than 
dexterity  and  quick-mindedness,  although  quick  fingers  are  neces- 
sary for  most  of  the  processes. 

In  answering  the  question  as  to  special  qualifications  required 
with  girls,  respectability  was  more  frequently  mentioned  than  any 
other  ;  whereas  boys  in  the  bookbinding  trade  were  often  required 
to  have  passed  the  Seventh  Standard,  it  was  often  stated  that 
"  average  intelligence  "  was  all  that  was  required  from  girls. 

A  girl  learner  in  these  trades  is,  therefore,  after  the  first  two  or 
three  months  not  learning  new  work  in  her  branch,  but  merely 
becoming  accustomed  to  her  work.  In  bookbinding  firms  girls 
learning  folding,  sewing,  or  stitching  are  frequently  paid  time 
wages  for  six  or  twelve  months  and  then  put  on  piece  rates, 
receiving  only  half  ordinary  rates  for  another  three,  or  six,  or 


BOOKBINDING  AND  STATIONERY  TRADES        671 

twelve  months,  according  to  the  employer's  discretion  and  the 
custom  of  the  house. 

Those  who  begin  as  errand  girls  are,  as  a  rule,  paid  more  at 
the  start  than  those  who  at  once  begin  to  practice  a  branch  of  the 
trade.  But  apart  from  this  the  determination  of  the  initial  wage 
seems  to  be  more  a  question  of  custom  in  the  firm  than  of  any 
exact  calculation  of  the  value  of  the  child  to  the  employer. 

Wages  of  girl  learners.  Firms  employing  9852  women  and 
girls  gave  particulars  of  the  weekly  wages  given  to  learners  while 
on  a  time  wage.  Disregarding  a  first  week's  trial  for  nothing 
required  by  some  firms  : 

Firms  employing    3.4  per  cent  paid  nothing  at  first  to  learners 
Firms  employing    9.9  per  cent  paid  2s. 
Firms  employing    8.0  per  cent  paid  2s.  6d. 
Firms  employing    9.3  per  cent  paid  33. 
Firms  employing     I .  I  per  cent  paid  33.  6  d. 
Firms  employing  29.4  per  cent  paid  45. 
Firms  employing    1.6  per  cent  paid  45.  6d. 
Firms  employing  21.5  per  cent  paid  53. 
Firms  employing  15.8  per  cent  paid  6s.  and  over 
Total         100 

These  rates  may  be  contrasted  with  those  paid  in  the  ready-made 
women's  clothing  trades  already  reported  on,  in  which  firms  employ- 
ing only  i  /i  per  cent  of  the  total  women  and  girls  paid  more  than 
35.  to  beginners  compared  with  firms  employing  69.4  in  the 
bookbinding  and  stationery  trades. 

This  difference  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  in  the  former  trades, 
more  skill  and  intelligence  being  required,  the  beginner  requires  more 
teaching  to  be  of  use  than  in  the  trades  now  under  consideration. 

Wages  in  second  and  third  years.  As  a  rule  only  vague  infor- 
mation could  be  obtained  as  to  earnings  in  the  intermediate  period 
between  the  first  year  and  the  attainment  of  full  efficiency. 

In  the  bookbinding  branch  folders,  sewers,  and  stitchers  in  the 
second  year  usually  were  paid  one  half  to  three  quarters  of  the 
piece  rates,  an  indication  that  some  skill  and  experience  are  neces- 
sary in  those  branches ;  those  paid  by  time  earned  generally  only 
about  5s.  to  6s.  in  the  second  year.  In  the  stationery  branches 
6s.,  or  more  often  75.,  a  week  was  paid  in  the  second  year.  At 


6/2 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


the  end  of  the  third  year  a  girl  apparently  should  be  earning  8  s. 
or  95.  on  time  wages. 

Range  of  earnings  of  competent  adult  ivorkers.  The  information 
given  by  employers  in  an  interview  would  naturally  omit  those 
whom  they  do  not  consider  competent  workers  and  would  include 
the  rates  earned  by  the  best  workers. 

In  the  following  table  are  given  the  percentage  employed  by 
employers  stating  certain  rates  of  wages  as  the  minimum,  and  the 
percentage  employed  by  employers  stating  certain  rates  of  wages 
as  the  maximum : 

PERCENTAGE    OF    WOMEN    AND    GIRLS    EMPLOYED    BY    FIRMS 

PAYING  TO  COMPETENT  ADULT  WOMEN  THE  UNDERMENTIONED 

MINIMUM,  MAXIMUM,  AND  MEAN  RATES 


WEEKLY  RATES 

MINIMUM 
RATE 

MAXIMUM 
RATE 

MIDDLE  POINT  *  OF  RANGES 
STATED  BY  EMPLOYERS 

8s       

o  C 

OS.            .  •    . 

I  OS        

•jo  c 

IIS  

I  Q 

I2S        .            

I  -13. 

O  Q 

Zt5 

*-3 

7  6 

I4S. 

88 

C  1 

I  SS 

6  s 

3-0 

!6s  

7   T 

uo 

166 

I7S. 

c  e 

64 

igs  

19  8 

8  2 

IDS. 

60 

2QS  

2  IS  

7  6 

22S  

2  IS. 

°o 

24S. 

2CS. 

08 

Over  253  

y-j 

Total   

too 

IOO 

Number  of  women  and  girls 
employed    by   firms    giving 
information 

7295 

7295 

9225* 

1  The  middle  point  in  some  cases  lay  between  the  rate  given  in  the  table  and  the  rate 
above  it. 

2  Including  numbers  employed  by  firms  stating  the  average  earned  by  competent  workers 
and  not  stating  a  range. 


BOOKBINDING  AND  STATIONERY  TRADES        673 

This  table  is  not  a  table  of  wages  but  a  statement  of  the  impor- 
tance, with  regard  to  numbers  employed,  of  employers  making 
statements  as  to  wages  earned  by  competent  adult  workers.  It  is 
not  comparable  with  the  table  compiled  from  the  Board  of  Trade 
returns  included  in  the  report  for  the  ready-made  women's  clothing 
trades,  which  gives  the  wages  actually  earned  in  an  ordinary  week 
by  the  "  middling  "  workers,  omitting  the  highest  and  lowest  paid. 

From  this  summary  it  appears  that  only  exceptional  women 
employed  in  a  few  exceptional  factories  earn  over  20 s.  in  these 
trades.  Nor  do  forewomen  earn  much  more.  Firms  employing 
close  on  60  per  cent  of  the  women  and  girls  included  in  the 
inquiry  gave  the  average  as  153.  or  less. 

The  lowest  maximum  is  that  attained  by  ruling-machine  feeders. 
The  wages  of  a  competent  ruling-machine  feeder  were  variously 
stated  as  "8s.  6d.,"  ";s.  to  ios.,"  "93.  to  us.,"  "  ios.,"  ";s. 
to  95.  6d.,"  "95.  to  ios.,"  "  ;s.  to  8s.,"  "  8s."  The  initial  wage 
of  ruling-machine  feeders  during  the  first  year  is  higher  than  that 
paid  in  most  other  branches.  While  there  is  no  reason  why  girls 
should  not  begin  work  at  these  machines,  those  interested  in  them 
should  see  that  they  are  passed  on  to  one  or  other  of  the  more  re- 
munerative and  less  mechanical  branches  after  the  first  year  or  two. 

In  a  very  few  cases  women  were  employed  as  ruling-machine 
operators,  the  range  of  their  earnings  extending  to  255. 

Women  earning  over  2os.  were  found  amongst  folders,  sewers, 
numberers,  gold  layers-on,  relief  stampers,  and  black  borderers. 
Only  a  very  small  proportion  of  folders  and  sewers  reached  this 
limit,  and  the  numbers  employed  as  gold  layers-on  and  black 
borderers  appeared  to  be  very  small. 

On  the  whole  there  seemed  to  be  little  difference  between  the 
profitableness  of  one  branch  compared  with  that  of  another.  Nothing 
resembling  real  apprenticeship  among  the  girls  was  found  except 
among  gold  layers-on  who  at  one  firm  signed  an  agreement  for 
two  years,  paid  no  premium,  received  payment  at  once,  and  earned 
6s.  in  the  third  half-year,  8s.  in  the  fourth,  and  (if  exceptionally 
good)  ios.  at  the  end  of  the  two  years. 

In  a  few  instances  girls  were  found  who  had  been  apprenticed 
(without  indentures)  for  a  small  premium,  but  this  seemed  due  to 
some  special  arrangements  which  charitable  persons  desired  to  make. 


6/4 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


Hours  of  ^vork.  Firms  employing  869 1  women  and  girls  and 
4154  men  and  boys  gave  information  as  to  hours  and  periods  of 
work.  The  information  with  regard  to  women  and  girls  is  sum- 
marized in  the  following  table  for  the  bookbinding  and  stationery 
trades  together: 


TABLE   SHOWING  THE  NUMBER  AND  PERCENTAGE  OF  WOMEN 

AND  GIRLS  BEGINNING  WORK  AT  SPECIFIED  HOURS  AND  THE 

NUMBER  OF  HOURS  WORKED  BY  THEM  PER  WEEK 


PERCENTAGE  WORKING  DIFFERENT  PERIODS 

NUMBER  WORK- 

WORKING HOURS  PER  WEEK  (EX- 

PER  WEEK  BEGINNING  WORK  AT  — 

ING  DIFFERENT 

8.0 

8.15 

8.30 

9.0 

TOTAL 

WEEK 

Under  45     

0.6 

0.4 

-JC 

45  and  under  47^    .... 

6.5 

— 

51.2 

46.3 

18.6 

1618 

47^  and  under  50    .... 

6.9 

IOO 

35-o 

47-7 

17.1 

1484 

50  and  under  52^    .... 

IO.O 

— 

12.2 

— 

9.6 

832 

52^  and  under  55    .... 

61.6 

— 

1.6 

6.0 

44.2 

3839 

55  and  under  57^-    .... 

3.8 

— 

— 

— 

2.6 

232 

57^-  and  upwards     .... 

10.6 

— 

— 

— 

7-5 

651 

Total  

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

8601 

Percentage  beginning  work 

at  specified  times    .    .    . 

70.5 

1.4 

20.4 

7-7 

IOO 

— 

Number  beginning  work  at 

specified  times     .... 

6128 

120 

1773 

670 

8691 

— 

The  hours  of  beginning  work  appear  to  be  later  in  the  book- 
binding trade  than  in  the  stationery  trade. 


PERCENTAGE  OF  WOMEN  AND  GIRLS 
BEGINNING  WORK  AT 

NUMBER 
EMPLOYED 
BY  FIRMS 

GIVING 

INFORMATION 

8.0 

8.15 

8.30 

9.0 

TOTAL 

Bookbinding     

53-3 
90.2 

73-9 

4.8 

29.2 
9-8 
19-3 

'7-5 

2.0 

IOO 
IOO 
IOO 

3535 
2645 
2511 

Stationery     
Stationery  and  bookbinding     . 

Total      

70-5 

1.4 

2Q-4 

7-7 

IOO 

8691 

BOOKBINDING  AND  STATIONERY  TRADES        675 


The  total  hours  ordinarily  worked  during  the  week  are  also  less 
in  the  bookbinding  trade  than  in-  the  stationery  trade. 


PERCENTAGE  OF  WOMEN  AND  GIRLS  WORKING  DIFFERENT 

WORKING  HOURS  PER  WEEK 

PERIODS  PER  WEEK 

(EXCLUDING  MEALTIMES) 

Bookbinding 

Stationery 

Bookbinding 
and  stationery 

All  firms  giving 
information 

Under  45     

I.O 

0.4 

45  and  under  47^    .... 

22.7 

6.9 

25-1 

18.6 

47^  and  under  50    .... 

27.6 

— 

2O.2 

17.1 

50  and  under  52-£    .... 

II.7 

6.7 

9-7 

9.6 

52^  and  under  55    .... 

134 

84.5 

•     45  -° 

44.2 

55  and  under  57^    .... 

6.6 

— 

— 

3.6 

57^  and  upwards     .... 

17.0 

1.9 

— 

7-5 

Total    

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

Number  employed  by  firms 

giving  information 

3535 

2645 

2511 

8691 

As  a  general  rule,  therefore,  the  weekly  hours  of  work  are  at 
least  five  less  than  those  permitted  by  law,  and  in  the  case  of  one 
third  of  the  women  and  girls  are  at  least  ten  hours  less. 

The  hours  are  on  the  whole  longer  than  the  usual  hours  in  the 
ready-made  women's  clothing  trades,  where  78  percent  worked  less 
than  fifty-two  and  one-half  hours  compared  with  only  45.7  per  cent 
in  the  trades  under  review. 

Seasonal  fluctuations.  On  the  other  hand,  these  trades  compare 
very  favorably  with  the  clothing  trades  in  regularity  of  employment. 
A  large  percentage  are  employed  by  firms  stating  that  they  expe- 
rience no  seasonal  slackness.  Other  firms  state  that  they  are  never 
slack  but  have  a  busy  season,  when  they  take  on  season  hands,  these 
occasional  workers  being  frequently  married  women  who  have  left 
the  trade.  No  young  persons  may  work  more  than  the  ordinary  sixty 
hours  a  week  permitted  by  law,  but  the  margin  between  the  ordinary 
hours  worked  and  the  full  time  permitted,  together  with  the  over- 
time permitted  for  adult  women,  make  it  possible  for  some  firms  to 
get  through  the  busy  autumn  season  without  employing  casual  labor. 

Firms  employing  7162  women  and  girls  gave  definite  informa- 
tion about  slack  periods,  and  firms  employing  2221  women  and 


676  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

girls  gave  definite  information  as  to  busy  seasons  and  not  as  to 
slackness.  The  information  given  by  this  second  group  has  been 
tabulated,  and  is  given  as  supplementing  and,  to  a  great  extent, 
confirming  that  given  by  the  first  group. 

The  following  table  shows  for  each  month  the  percentage  of 
7 1 62  women  and  girls  employed  by  firms  affected  by  slackness  and 
of  222 1  women  and  girls  employed  by  firms  affected  by  extra  pressure. 


PERCENTAGE  OF 

2221  WOMEN  AND 

GlRLS  AFFECTED 

BY  PRESSURE 
29.9 
2O.O 

25.7 

8.1 

9-9 

9-9 
15.8 
20.3 
73-6 
81.3 
89.0 
86.5 


Both  columns  of  the  above  table  show  that  there  is  extra  pres- 
sure in  these  trades  in  September,  October,  November,  and  Decem- 
ber. April  and  May  show  no  slackness  in  the  first  group  of  firms, 
but  also  show  little  pressure  in  the  second  group. 

But  although  the  seasonal  fluctuations  are  neither  so  numerous 
nor  so  severe  as  in  the  clothing  trades,  the  large  number  of  small 
firms  competing  with  each  other  are  not  in  a  position  to  guarantee 
full  employment  through  the  year.  Several  small  firms  do  nothing 
but  machine-ruling  work,  and  this  work,  although  paid  better  at 
the  start  than  most  other  processes,  leads  to  nothing  and  will  never 
yield  a  fit  wage  for  an  adult  woman.  On  the  other  hand,  it  some- 
times happens  that  in  a  very  small  firm  a  girl  may  have  a  chance 
of  doing  many  processes  which  she  would  never  be  required  to 
learn  in  a  large  one. 


PERCENTAGE  OF 
7162  WOMEN  AND 

GlRLS  AFFECTED 

BY  SLACKNESS 

.    .    .     .          6.1 

February    

.    .'    .     .        10.8 

March             .... 

4..Q 

April     

,    .     .     .          1.6 

I.O 

June      
July 

.     .     .     .           7-9 
I7.Q 

August       

IQ.8 

September  

4.6 

October      

I.Q 

November 

December  

No  slack  months  . 

6A.6 

BOOKBINDING  AND  STATIONERY  TRADES        677 

Prospects  of  promotion.  A  few  of  the  women  engaged  in  the 
trade  become  forewomen,  but  the  position  does  not  appear  to  be 
much  coveted,  and  the  forewoman's  pay  rarely  exceeds  25  s.  a  week 
and  is  frequently  less.  Having  attained  her  maximum  degree  of 
efficiency  by  the  time  she  is  twenty-one,  a  woman  might  work  at 
the  trade  for  another  thirty  years  without  any  prospect  of  improving 
her  position. 

Arrangements  for  meals.  The  arrangements  for  meals  for 
women  and  girls  in  these  trades  in  the  firms  visited  were  on  the 
whole  more  satisfactory  than  in  the  factories  and  workshops  in  the 
ready-made  women's  clothing  trades  in  the  E.G.  district.  In  many 
firms  the  men  and  boys  were  expected  to  go  outside  for  meals, 
but  provision  of  some  kind  was  nearly  always  made  for  the  women 
and  girls. 


NUMBER  AND  PERCENTAGE  OF  WOMEN  AND  GIRLS  EMPLOYED 

BY    FIRMS    GIVING    INFORMATION    GROUPED    ACCORDING    TO 

THE  ARRANGEMENTS  FOR  MEALS 


STATIONERY  AND 
BOOKBINDING 

WOMEN'S 
CLOTHING, 
E.G.  DISTRICT 

Number 

Percentage 

Percentage 

Meals  purchasable  on  premises      .    . 
Provision  made  for  heating  food     .    . 
May  have  meals  on  premises      .    .    . 
Must  have  meals  outside     

I.707 

7.5IS 
512 

318 
422 

I6.3 
71.7 
4-9 
3-o 
4.1 

10.9 
40.4 
12.3 

20.8 

*5± 

Vague  or  no  information    

Total    

10,474 

IOO 

IOO 

In  nearly  all  firms  beginning  as  early  as  8  A.M.  and  working 
as  late  as  7  P.M.,  the  full  one  and  a  half  hours  were  allowed  for 
meals  although  not  legally  compulsory. 

Trade  classes.  There  does  not  appear  to  be  any  branch  in  these 
trades  in  which  girls  would  derive  any  trade  benefit  by  attending 
trade  classes.  In  bookbinding  proper  they  have  no  part.  A  few 
women  with  capital  have  succeeded  in  obtaining  training  and  have 
shown  a  high  standard  of  taste  and  skill  in  the  bookbinding  craft. 


6/8  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

But  however  fitted  girls  may  be  for  such  a  trade,  there  seems  to 
be  no  desire  on  either  the  side  of  the  employer  or  of  the  girl  that 
apprenticeship  in  bookbinding  should  be  thrown  open  to  girls. 

It  should,  however,  be  remembered  that  although  one  depart- 
ment of  work  generally  offers  no  better  opening  than  any  other 
in  these  trades  for  women,  nevertheless  it  is  an  advantage  for  a  girl 
to  be  expert  in  every  branch  so  that  slackness  of  orders  in  one 
branch  may  be  balanced  by  transference  to  another  branch  where 
there  may  be  a  pressure.  In  so  far  as  fixed  agreements  with 
employers  are  desirable  in  placing  girls  in  these  trades,  it  would 
appear  to  be  mainly  in  this  connection,  with  the  object  of  securing 
that  the  girls  should  acquire  skill  in  several  branches. 

Advantages  and  disadvantages.  So  far  as  wages  are  concerned 
the  average  girl  with  no  special  bent  in  any  direction,  but  of  care- 
ful and  methodical  habits,  can  earn  as  much  in  the  ten  years  after 
leaving  an  elementary  school  as  she  could  earn  in  other  trades.  If 
she  obtains  employment  in  a  large  firm  she  may  suffer  a  little 
through  trade  slackness,  but  not  much  from  seasonal  slackness. 
The  demand  for  stationery  and  account  books  (the  latter  being  a 
branch  of  the  bookbinding  trades  in  which  many  women  are  em- 
ployed) is  likely  to  increase  steadily.  The  hours  of  work  are  less 
than  the  full  time  permitted  by  law.  The  girls  in  the  bookbinding 
works  are  frequently  relatives  of  the  men  engaged  as  printers  or 
bookbinders  in  the  same  firm.  The  social  advantages  of  working 
along  with  skilled  workmen  earning  about  2\  times  as  much  as 
themselves,  if  not  more,  are  probably  not  ignored  by  the  parents 
of  girls  entering  the  trade. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  work  offers  few  attractions  to  an  imagi- 
native or  constructive  mind.  It  gives  no  scope  for  industrial  ambi- 
tion, and  gives  no  practice  in  any  craft  useful  later  on  in  domestic 
life.  To  a  girl  with  a  taste  for  reading,  music,  social  work,  or 
any  other  unremunerative  occupation  the  comparatively  small 
demand  on  her  intelligence  exacted  by  the  daily  work  may  be 
a  recommendation. 


PART  IV.  SOME  PRACTICAL  ASPECTS 
OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  AND  EMPLOYMENT  IN 
BIRMINGHAM 

BY  MEYER  BLOOMFIELD 

(From  "  The  School  and  the  Start  in  Life,"  United  States  Bureau  of  Education 

Bulletin,  1914) 

Nowhere  in  England  will  be  found  a  more  intelligently  executed 
plan  of  helping  children  start  in  life  than  in  the  city  of  Birmingham. 
The  education  committee  through  its  central  care  committee  has 
built  up  an  organization  of  school  care  committees  which  now  covers 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  city.  The  scheme  operates  under  the  Choice 
of  Employment  Act  and  was  approved  by  the  board  of  education  in 
consultation  with  the  Board  of  Trade  in  July,  1911.  An  integral 
part  of  the  Birmingham  scheme  is  the  chain  of  juvenile  labor  ex- 
changes distributed  at  central  points  throughout  the  city,  in  the 
management  of  which  there  is  the  closest  cooperation  between  the 
school  and  Board  of  Trade  officials.  A  corps  of  nearly  1500  men 
and  women,  called  helpers,  undertake  to  interest  themselves  in  the 
individual  children  and  their  parents  who  use  the  labor  exchanges. 
During  the  first  seventeen  months  nearly  1 1 ,000  applications  were 
received  from  employers,  and  7000  children  under  seventeen  years 
of  age  were  placed,  besides  numbers  of  other  cases  in  which  the 
helpers  themselves  undertook  to  counsel  and  place  the  children. 

Birmingham  is  fortunate  in  the  variety  of  its  skilled  occupations. 
Although  there  is  a  vast  amount  of  unskilled  work,  likely  to  increase 
with  constant  improvement  in  labor-saving  machinery,  yet  the  metal 
trades,  the  printing  trade,  and  other  industries  offer  satisfactory 

679 


680  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

opportunities  to  a  large  number  of  workers.  To  some  degree, 
therefore,  the  problem  of  starting  young  workers  in  Birmingham  is 
less  severe  than  in  Liverpool  or  London.  Notwithstanding  these 
relative  advantages,  however,  a  study  of  the  Birmingham  enterprise 
only  strengthens  the  conviction  which  comes  to  every  student  of 
vocational-guidance  work  anywhere ;  namely,  that  placement  for 
children  under  eighteen  is  at  best  a  makeshift  so  long  as  the  public 
neglects  to  put  in  force  certain  fundamental  social  policies  through 
legislation,  which  policies  will  be  discussed  in  the  closing  chapters. 
These  fundamentals,  it  should  be  said,  are  keenly  appreciated  by 
the  men  and  the  women  who  are  devoting  themselves  to  the  youth 
of  Birmingham.  About  1 3,000  boys  and  girls  leave  the  elementary 
schools  in  that  city  each  year ;  most  of  them  are  absorbed  by  offices, 
factories,  workshops,  and  warehouses.  The  need  of  guidance  and 
training  is  apparent  as  soon  as  the  careers  of  these  children  are 
scrutinized.  To  meet  this  need  the  following  plan,  in  active  opera- 
tion for  more  than  two  years,  is  in  charge  of  the  central  care  com- 
mittee, which  devotes  its  attention  to  the  industrial  problems  of  boys 
and  girls  from  the  time  they  leave  school  until  they  are  seventeen 
years  of  age.  This  committee  consists  of  six  members  of  the  edu- 
cation committee,  four  representatives  of  teachers,  three  of  em- 
ployers, three  of  workmen,  four  social  workers,  the  school  medical 
officer,  and  others.  The  committee  carries  on  its  work  through 
two  sets  of  agencies  :  (i)  the  juvenile  employment  exchanges  and 
(2)  school  care  committees. 

1.   THE  CENTRAL  JUVENILE  EMPLOYMENT  EXCHANGE 

This  is  in  charge  of  an  officer  specially  appointed  by  the  Board 
of  Trade  on  account  of  his  knowledge,  training,  and  fitness  for  deal- 
ing with  the  employment  of  juveniles.  He  attends  the  meetings  of 
the  central  care  committee  and  acts  in  consultation  with  their  officer. 

The  chief  work  of  the  exchange  is  : 

(1)  To  receive  and  register  applicants  for  employment  from 
youths  and  girls  under  seventeen  years  of  age. 

(2)  To  receive  and  register  applications  from  employers  for 
juvenile  employees. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         68 1 

(3)  To  endeavor  to  place  the  applicants  for  employment  in  the 
situations  for  which  they  are  best  suited  and  in  which  they  are 
likely  to  be  most  successful. 

The  exchange  is  in  a  good  position  to  select  the  applicant,  because 
both  the  exchange  and  the  central  care  committee  have  accumulated 
an  immense  amount  of  information  about  the  various  trades  of  the 
city,  and  so  can  advise  as  to  wages,  prospects,  and  conditions  in 
any  trade.  It  knows  what  trades  lead  to  regular  and  improving 
work,  and  can  caution  against  bad  conditions  and  prospects. 

By  the  time  a  child  applies  for  a  post,  the  officials  above  men- 
tioned will  have  in  their  possession  a  report  concerning  it  from  the 
head  teacher  of  its  school,  from  the  school  medical  officer,  and  from 
the  school  care-committee  helper.  In  the  first  twelve  months  7180 
applicants  were  received  from  employers,  and  4907  were  filled. 

For  the  convenience  of  parents  and  juvenile  applicants  five 
branch  exchanges  have  been  opened  in  various  parts  of  the  city. 

2.    SCHOOL  CARE  COMMITTEES 

The  scheme  provides  for  the  appointment  of  a  school  care  com- 
mittee for  each  elementary  school  in  the  city.  Many  schools  thus 
have  their  own  care  committees.  In  a  number  of  cases  it  has  been 
found  advisable  to  group  several  neighboring  schools  under  one  care 
committee.  These  committees  consist  of  school  managers,  teachers, 
and  others  who  are  prepared  to  interest  themselves  actively  in  boys 
and  girls.  The  members-  are  assigned  as  "  helpers  "  to  a  small 
number  of  children  each.  The  helper  is  put  in  touch  with  the  boys 
or  girls  about  three  months  before  they  leave  school,  and  at  once 
tries  to  set  up  a  friendly  relation  with  the  parents  as  well  as  with 
the  children  by  visits  to  the  home  or  by  other  means.  The  children 
are  encouraged  to  talk  about  what  they  would  like  to  be,  the  parents 
about  what  they  have  in  view.  When  there  are  vague  or  unsuitable 
proposals  for  a  child's  employment,  or  no  plans  at  all,  the  parents 
and  the  child  are  urged  to  attend  at  the  juvenile  employment  ex- 
change, and  thereby  to  find  the  best  available  post  for  which  the 
child  is  suited.  To  rouse  the  sense  of  parental  responsibility,  to 
lead  the  well-meaning  but  uninformed  parents  to  industrial  knowl- 
edge and  right  action,  to  encourage  the  choice  of  skilled  employment 


682  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

rather  than  employment  with  no  prospect  of  advancement  for  the 
boy  —  these  are  among  the  helper's  aims  on  the  industrial  side, 
while  the  employment  exchanges  provide  the  means  of  giving 
effect  to  the  school  care-committee's  work. 

The  helper  endeavors  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  boy  or  girl  for 
about  three  years.  This,  as  regards  employment,  is  necessary  to 
counteract  the  aimless  drifting  or  the  capricious  change  from  job 
to  job,  to  give  encouragement  to  face  and  overcome  difficulties,  to 
see  that,  if  changes  are  advisable,  they  are  made  for  the  youth's 
benefit  and  do  not  give  rise  to  intervals  of  disastrous  unemployment. 

The  conditions  under  which  boys  and  girls  are  employed  are  in 
many  places  quite  unsatisfactory  and  have  a  bad  effect  morally  or 
physically,  or  both.  Information  is  gathered  by  the  central  care 
committee  and  the  juvenile  employment  exchanges,  which  some 
day  doubtless  will  be  used  to  improve  these  conditions. 

FURTHER  EDUCATION  AND  KINDRED  INFLUENCES 

The  helper  takes  an  interest  and  stimulates  the  parents'  interests 
too  in  further  education  of  the  boys  and  girls.  They  are  urged, 
where  the  hours  of  work  allow,  to  join  classes  at  the  technical 
schools,  schools  of  art,  evening  continuation  schools,  or  at  such 
institutions  as  may  be  most  suitable  to  the  individual  cases. 

Some  school  care  committees  concern  themselves  with  the 
means  of  recreation  and  assist  with  boys'  or  girls'  clubs. 

Again,  meetings  of  parents  are  held  from  time  to  time,  such 
as  have  already  been  organized  by  several  school  care  committees ; 
also  meetings  of  boys  and  girls  about  to  leave  school  or  who  have 
recently  left.  These  meetings  are  found  to  be  valuable  means  of 
rousing  interest  in  the  future  well-being  of  the  children. 

The  helper's  notebook  is  an  interesting  device  for  keeping  track 
not  only  of  the  children  but  of  the  helper's  effectiveness  as  well. 
These  notebooks  when  carefully  employed  are  a  veritable  store  of 
social  information.  The  inside  of  the  cover  of  each  book  is  printed 
in  the  manner  indicated  on  pages  684  and  685.  Blank  pages  are 
inserted  for  the  helper's  notes,  the  width  of  which  is  such  that  the 
edges  reach  the  vertical  line.  The  ruled  lines  for  the  notes  continue 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         683 

the  horizontal  printed  lines  of  the  cover.  It  is  thus  unnecessary  to 
print  the  "headings"  on  each  page,  and  the  "fillers,"  or  blank 
pages,  may  be  easily  renewed. 

The  duties  outlined  by  the  Birmingham  education  committee  for 
the  school  care  committees  are  given  in  full,  as  they  clearly  indicate 
the  nature  of  the  work  expected  of  each  committee. 

DUTIES  OF  SCHOOL  CARE  COMMITTEES 

1 .  Members  of  school  care  committees  should  do  their  best  to  influence  the 
industrial  history  and  character  of  the  children  under  their  care  by  insuring  that 
more  account  be  taken  of  the  needs  of  individual  cases  and  of  the  general  con- 
ditions of  industry  than  is  possible  at  present.    They  should  also  encourage  the 
wider  use  of  educational  institutions  of  all  sorts  after  the  age  of  compulsory 
attendance  has  been  passed.    Further,  they  should  not  only  try  to  influence  the 
child,  but  also  the  parents,  whose  cooperation  and  support  is  in  the  long  run 
absolutely  essential. 

2.  Any  person  who  is  already  taking  an  interest  in  boys  or  girls  between  the 
ages  of  thirteen  and  seventeen,  or  who  is  otherwise  in  close  touch  with  families 
with  children  of  that  age,  will  become  ipso  facto  members  of  the  care  committee 
of  the  school  to  which  the  child  belongs  or  belonged. 

3.  Three  months  before  a  child  leaves  school  the  responsible  helper  and  the 
head  teacher  will  confer  together  as  to  the  child's  future,  and  then  consult  with 
and  advise  the  child  and  its  parents.    Should  a  further  interview  be  thought 
advisable,  it  would  be  held  one  month  before  the  child  leaves  school.    These 
interviews  can  take  place  wherever  most  convenient. 

4.  When  a  child  has  left  school  and  started  work  the  helper  shall  keep 
in  effective  touch  with  him  and  his  home  and  shall  continue  to  advise  and  en- 
courage him  and  his  parents  in  every  way.   (The  frequency  of  his  visits  or  inter- 
views will,  of  course,  vary  with  the  troublesomeness  or  ignorance  of  the  case.) 

5.  It  is  most  important  that  the  helper  should  take  care  to  keep  himself 
informed  of  all  changes  in  the  work  and  of  the  home  conditions  of  the  child, 
and  report  immediately  to  the  secretary  of  the  school  care  committee  (where 
a  child  has  left  work)  the  date  and  cause  of  leaving ;  (where  a  child  has  started 
work)  the  employer's  name  and  trade,  nature  of  work  done  by  the  child,  wages 
(piece  or  day),  hours  (short  time,  casual,  extra  long  hours). 

It  is  also  desirable  to  have  a  general  report  on  the  child's  progress  in  work 
and  character  twice  a  year. 

6.  The  helper  should  give  every  encouragement  to  the  child  to  use  the 
juvenile  employment  exchange  to  which  his  school  is  attached. 

7.  When  the  helper  needs  information  about  a  child  under  his  care  he 
may  apply  to  the  secretary  of  the  school  care  committee  for  access  to  the 
confidential  records. 


684            READINGS 
(i)  Child's  name.     (2)  No.   . 

SUGGESTIONS  TO  SCHOOL  CARE  COMMITTEES  AND  HELPERS  FOR  FILLING  UP  HELPER'S  REPORTS  tj 
[The  references  in  these  suggestions  are  to  the  helper's  report  cards.] 
i.  Members  of  school  care  committees  and  helpers  will  recognize  that  it  is  most  important  that  the  greatest  care  be  taken  to  preserve  "^ 
the  strictly  confidential  character  of  the  teacher's  reports  and  helper's  reports,  and  to  guard  against  their  loss.  It  can  be  readily 
seen  that  friction  and  other  disagreeable  consequences  might  arise  between  head  teachers  and  parents  in  some  cases  if  the 
remarks  of  the  former  were  known  to  the  latter,  and  similarly  the  work  of  school  care  committees  and  helpers  would  be  hampered  £* 
and  probably  rendered  impossible  if  the  helper's  reports  were  not  in  careful  keeping  and  always  treated  as  strictly  confidential. 
2.  The  first  particulars  as  to  "  School,"  "  Standard,"  etc.  can  be  filled  in  from  the  head  teacher's  report. 
3.  With  regard  to  "  Date  of  leaving,"  helpers  should  guard  against  giving  or  countenancing  the  idea  that  a  child  may  leave  school  ^ 
before  the  date  of  legal  exemption.  ^ 
4.  The  entry  under  "  Home  conditions  "  should  be  brief  observations  of  the  home,  evidence  of  care,  or  lack  of  it,  in  bringing  up  "CL 
children,  etc. 
5.  Under  No.  4  on  the  helper's  report  card  should  be  given  the  name  of  any  club  or  organization,  whether  religious,  social,  educa-  Q 
tional,  or  recreative,  with  which  the  child  is  connected.  ^ 
6.  As  to  No.  5,  it  is  important  to  bring  home  to  parents  and  children  the  necessity  of  continued  education.  Probably  the  teacher's 
report  card  will  give  the  name  of  the  evening  school  or  other  classes  which  the  child  has  promised  to  attend.  If  so,  the  helper  O 
can  give  valuable  encouragement  and  fortify  the  child  in  its  intention  to  go  to  evening  school  and  to  continue  there.  If  the  head  1> 
teacher's  report  does  not  record  a  promise,  the  helper  should  make  special  efforts  to  obtain  one.  ^ 
7.  If  the  child  has  a  definite  promise  of  employment,  please  enter  "  Yes  "  after  6  (i)  and  give  under  7  particulars  of  the  employment  O 
promised.  If  the  child  has  no  definite  promise,  but  pkns  have  been  formed  for  the  child's  employment,  enter  "  Yes  "  under  6  (2)  W 
and  then  give  particulars  under  7. 
8.  With  regard  to  8,  it  is  most  important  that  free  use  be  made  of  the  Juvenile  Employment  Exchange,  in  order  that  the  work  of  school 
care  committees,  helpers,  etc.  may  bear  full  fruit.  Hence,  if  the  child  has  no  definite  promise  of  or  plans  for  work,  it  should  be 
urged  to  register  at  the  employment  exchange,  168  Corporation  Street,  or  one  of  the  branches.  Even  if  there  is  employment  in 
view,  and  this  does  not  appear  satisfactory,  the  child  should  still  be  persuaded,  if  possible,  to  ascertain  by  application  at  the 
exchange  whether  something  better  cannot  be  obtained. 

Address            

School          

(i)  Standard    "\ 

(2)  Date  of  leaving  .    .    .   / 

Home  conditions  

Father's  occupation     .    .    . 

Mother's  occupation  (if  any) 

No.  in  family  (i)  over  14  ;\ 
(2\  under  id    .                  .  I 

Social  or  other  organization 

Evening  school  or  classes  \ 
child  promises  to  attend  J 

(i)  Promise  or  (2)  plans  for\ 
employment  / 

Will  application  be  made\ 
to  the  J.  L.  Exchange    .  / 

Dates  of  visits     

1 
g 

M 

? 

COVER  OF  NOTEBOOK;   LEFT 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         685 


«:!g    o-    °|j   .§'£   J    Sit  1    if   s 

•r=>              hfl  2         C   £       ~   8         u         PCS         0 

?  -jj  ^        e             U  "*       O  e        C        ^"»  03  •**        *"*       "C 

FURTHER  EDUCATION 

/Evening    school    or    class 
\     attended  by  child  .    .    . 

<u  c  •£*      *^  ~            *®       5            15      ^  in.  05       ^*     <*H 

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..  CT*  <u        ^tn      4-»o      -M           b      S        •»      c      -S3e       o 

•S  S         -2g     <w      eg     -     wog      w      "E 

f  Date  of  (i)  entering  .    .    . 
\     (2)  leaving     

!|1  1?  il  li  t  |i*  i  sili 

Subjects  or  course    .... 

J  5^-S      «  Zr    1  o      °  "«     JB      ^.^  •-'     >2      2  i  o  _g  « 

/  Progress  or  reason  for  leav- 
1      ine 

03:3     -e      «S      g  "S     "o     "S-Qe      CL^1"'-"...* 

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o.^.-S      ?>"       co      4->iT     cu     SB          u      >§>°'S 

1?!  S|  il  i!  1  I!!3  f  Iff  if 

EMPLOYMENT 
^ame  of  employer     .... 

gll  Jl    II   1°    u   1*1    1    ?1t^« 

Address  of  employer     .    .    . 

III  il  ll  |l  I  ?l|  illilll 

{  Date   of    (i)    commencing 
\     (2)  leaving 

|«g  |j  -«|    |2    8    |So   H-S'fl'Sa 

Trade  and  nature  of  work 

II  !  iLflllfl  ^  felsPlfill 

/  (i)  Weekly  wage  .... 
\  (2)  Daily  hours  

nua      u-2u2      §      g     "S      S'u3rt'2G'2.22t'!c 

S'oo      cP^I^'Su      «     ia"..«  I'e'r  1  |J^2 

•§««   Jla|3J88S    -    «1^e8ll|llS 

How  employment  obtained    . 

I'll  Jbiipji  |  pill.||fc| 

/  Progress  or  reason  for  leav- 
l     ing     

III  Ifllllii  li^ftlflflll 

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rt\£  °l     -2  ^  c  "  eS  «r+r  c      T3-1-1-    2^^3rt-^T3"c:tSg 
pttx     rt^^^^^c.2      wj=  sj=  1!  B  8    —  «  o  -£  S 
G|u^       Otfj'u+sC^^^-^      feu  tT**^  ^c  ot3^3  S5  ,/s  fliw 

EMARKS,  NOTES,  AND  INFORMATION  ON  CHANGES 
OF  EMPLOYMENT,  ETC. 

°"         2       H       2       ;?;i£>vS£'<2 

X 

COVER  OF  NOTEBOOK;  RIGHT 


686  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

8.  The  helper  should  attend  his  school  care  committee  meetings,  when  he 
may  bring  up  individual  cases  in  which  he  has  difficulty  in  deciding  what  to 
advise.    Helpers  will  not  be  expected  to  bring  up  ordinary  cases. 

9.  Where  a  helper  is  brought  into  touch  with  unsuitable  conditions  in  any 
trade  or  with  any  other  problems  connected  with  child  labor,  he  may  bring  the 
matter  up  for  discussion  at  the  next  school  care  committee  meeting.    If  con- 
sidered advisable,  the  school  care  committee  will  send  up  a  report  on  the  matter 
to  the  branch  committee,  who  shall  in  turn  forward  it,  with  their  comments,  to 
the  central  care  committee.    Until  branch  care  committees  are  formed  the  report 
would  be  sent  direct  to  the  central  care  committee. 

At  the  inception  of  the  Birmingham  work  the  cooperation  of  the 
chamber  of  commerce  was  secured  for  the  purpose  of  inquiring 
among  the  employers  representing  the  leading  trades  of  the  city  as 
to  the  conditions,  requirements  of  different  trades,  and  the  possibili- 
ties of  further  training  for  the  young  workpeople.  The  question- 
naire used  in  that  inquiry  deserves  re-publication  and  is  here  given  : 


INDUSTRIAL  TRAINING  INQUIRY 


Name  of  firm 

Address  of  firm_ 
Trade 


Branches  of  trade  carried  on  or  particulars  of  goods  manufactured. 


i.  Employers'  requirements 

(1)  Is  there  a  sufficient  supply  of  trained  workmen,  or  do  you  have  diffi- 

culty in  getting  them  ? 

(2)  (a)  For  what  different  branches  of  work  do  you  employ  boys  in  your 

trade? 

(b)  How  long  would  it  take  an  average  boy  to  learn  each  branch  ? 

(c)  At  what  age  should  he  begin  ? 

(d)  What  special  characteristics  are  most  needed  ? 

(3)  (a)  Do  you  want  general  capacity  and  training  depending  on  dexterity, 

powers  of  observation,  self-reliance,  initiative,  and  adaptability? 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         687 

(b)  Or  do  you  require  only  mechanical  skill  ? 

(4)  (a)  Would  there  be  any  opening  for  youths  if  given  all-round  training 
in  your  trade  ? 

(b)  Or  do  you  want  only  specialization  in  parts  of  it,  or  in  single 
processes  ? 

2.  Supply  of  boys 

(1)  Do  you  have  any  difficulty  in  getting  boys? 

(2)  How  do  you  get  boys  —  through  the  labor  exchange,  by  newspaper 

advertisement,  or  by  window  or  works  notice  ? 

(3)  (a)  About  how  long  do  boys  stay  with  you  on  the  average  ? 

(b)  Is  it  long  enough  to  learn  the  trade  ? 

(c)  What  hold  have  you  over  the  boys,  or  what  means  of  control  ? 

(4)  (a)  Are  the  boys  you  get  satisfactory  ? 

(b)  If  not,  in  what  way  are  they  unsatisfactory  ? 

(5)  Do  you  suffer  from  the  frequent  changes  of  jobs  common  amongst 

Birmingham  boys  ?  What  do  you  consider  to  be  the  cause  of 
the  frequent  changes?  , 

(6)  Is  there  anything  objectionable  to  boys  in  your  trade?   If  so,  have  you 

any  suggestions  for  removing  objections  or  making  the  trade 
more  attractive? 

3.  Schemes  of  training 

(1)  Is  there  apprenticeship?    Or  any  other  definite  agreed  scheme  for 

training  ? 

(2)  If  so,  give  details  —  premium  (if  any),  commencing  wages,  raises 

(amount  and  time),  indentures  (if  any)  or  other  agreement. 

(3)  Give  criticisms  or  suggestions  for  amendment. 


688  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

(4)  Is  there  any  subsequent  improvers'  stage?  If  so,  give  particulars. 

(5)  (a)  Is  technical  instruction  of  any  use? 

(b)  Have  you  any  scheme  of  cooperation  with  any  technical  school, 

evening  schools,  or  other  educational  institutions  ? 

(c)  Give  general  statement  of  what  is  wanted  and  criticisms  of  existing 

classes. 

(6)  What  modification  (if  any)  of  the  present  elementary-school  curriculum 

would  you  suggest  to  fit  boys  to  enter  your  trade  ? 

4.  Prospects  of  boys 

1 i )  What  number  of  boys  and  youths  (say  1 4  to  1 8)  does  your  firm  employ  ? 

(2)  What  number  of  men  ? 

(3)  (a)  Can  your  trade  absorb  all  the  boys  you  employ  when  they  become 

men? 

(b)  If  so,  at  what  ? 

(4)  (a)  If  not,  what  percentage  (or  proportion)  is  absorbed? 

(b)  At  what  age  do  the  others  drop  out  ? 

(c)  Do  you  know  what  becomes  of  them  ? 

(5)  From  what  other  sources  are  your  men  recruited,  if  not  from  boys 

who  have  been  in  the  trade  ? 

(6)  (a)  What  becomes  of  machine  minders  ? 

(b)  What  is  the  class  of  boy  doing  this  work  ? 

(c)  How  long  on  the  same  machine  and  what  arrangements  for  acquir- 

ing progressive  experience  of  machines? 

(7)  If  any  special  interest  is  taken  by  the  management  in  the  boys,  what 

form  does  it  take ;  for  example,  treatment  in  the  works,  helping 
them  to  learn  the  trade,  continuative  education,  and  generally 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         689 

taking  account  of  the  doings  and  progress?    Are  there  any 
special  instructions  to  foremen  on  this? 

5.  Hours  and  wages 

(1)  Hours  — 

(a)  What  is  the  usual  number  of  hours  worked  per  week  ? 

(b)  What  are  the  ordinary  daily  hours  ?  From  to 

(c)  What,  if  any,  seasonal  variation  of  hours  ? 

(2)  Wages  — 

(a)  What  are  the  commencing  wages  of  boys  (apart  from  apprentices 

already  dealt  with  in  3  (2))? 

(b)  What  are  the  usual  subsequent  raises  (state  amounts  and  periods 

or  ages)? 

(c)  Does  piecework  apply  at  all  to  boys  and  youths?   If  so,  please 

give  average  earnings  in  piecework  at  different  ages. 

(d)  Does  "subcontracting"  affect  the  boys  and  youths?  If  so,  give 

particulars. 

6.  General  observations 

The  following  documents  give  a  good  insight  into  the  workings 
of  the  school  care  committees  : 

CENTRAL  CARE  COMMITTEE 

Report  of  the  Conference  between  Members  of  the  Central  Care  Committee 
and  Honorary  Officers  of  School  Care  Committees 

The  second  half  yearly  conference  between  members  of  the  central  care 
committee  and  the  honorary  officers  of  school  care  committees  took  place  at 
the  Education  Offices,  Margaret  Street,  on  Tuesday,  November  26,  1912. 

There  were  present  69  ladies  and  gentlemen  representing  the  central  care 
committee,  two  branch  care  committees,  and  40  school  care  committees  and 
subcommittees.  Eighteen  school  care  committees  and  subcommittees  were  not 
represented. 

Councilor  Norman  Chamberlain,  chairman  of  the  central  care  committee, 
presided. 

The  agenda  of  1 2  items  consisted,  with  two  exceptions,  of  matters  submitted 
by  school  care  committees  themselves  for  discussion.  The  following  notes  and 
recommendations  are  given  on  the  items  seriatim. 


690  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

1.  Old  scholars'  clubs.   (Farm  Street,  etc.,  school  care  committee.) 

After  the  usefulness  of  old  scholars'  clubs  in  the  work  of  the  school  care 
committees  and  the  desirability  of  the  central  care  committee  providing  facilities 
for  meeting  had  been  briefly  advocated,  the  chairman  announced  that  rooms  in 
schools  could  be  used  free  of  rent,  but  subject  to  payment  by  the  clubs  of  the 
caretaker's  fee.  The  central  care  committee  had  tried  to  secure  the  reduction 
of  that  fee,  or  the  power  to  pay  it,  but  the  present  had  been  shown  to  be  an 
unsuitable  time  to  press  for  this  concession. 

2.  Apprenticeship.   (Farm  Street,  etc.,  school  care  committee.) 

In  reply  to  inquiries,  the  chairman  announced  that  the  central  care  com- 
mittee was  about  to  begin  an  inquiry  into  the  whole  question  of  industrial 
training,  including  apprenticeship,  in  Birmingham. 

3.  Clerical  work.    (St.  Thomas's  school  care  committee.) 

Mr.  Birch  and  other  speakers  said  that  the  amount  of  clerical  work  falling 
upon  honorary  secretaries  was  very  heavy,  and  that  unless  it  could  be  reduced, 
or  at  least  its  increase  arrested,  it  would  become  impossible  for  honorary  secre- 
taries to  cope  with  it.  It  was  agreed  that  several  forms  recently  supplied  had 
appreciably  reduced  clerical  work  in  certain  directions.  The  following  sug- 
gestions were  made : 

(1)  That  the  heading  of  the  helpers'  reports  should  be  filled  in  at  the  office 

before  issue. 

(2)  That  where  a  committee  deals  with  more  than  one  school,  a  registrar  be 

appointed  for  each  school  or  department. 

(3)  That  the  cards  for  summoning  meetings  be  sent  from  the  office. 

4.  Return  of  helpers'1  reports.  (Bournville  and  Stirchley  school  care  committee.) 
The  discussion  showed  that  the  difficulty  of  getting  in  the  helpers'  reports 

is  very  great  and  a  serious  problem.   Helpers  who  have  taken  cards  or  to  whom 
cards  have  been  sent  have  in  numbers  of  cases  failed  to  attend  meetings  or  to 
send  in  their  reports,  even  after  repeated  requests.    One  honorary  secretary  had 
been  able  to  obtain  the  return  of  only  20  reports  from  93  cases. 
Suggestions 

(1)  Councilor  Lord  urged  the  necessity  of  holding  meetings  monthly  on  a 

recognized  day,  of  handing  out  new  cases  then,  and  calling  for  reports 
on  cases  taken  out  at  the  previous  meeting.  This  had  proved  useful 
in  establishing  the  habit  of  attendance  in  the  Sparkbrook  district. 

(2)  That  on  the  next  issue  of  helpers'  report  cards  a  note  should  be  printed 

requesting  the  return  of  the  report  by  a  specified  time.  (The  chairman 
stated  that  this  had  been  done.) 

(3)  That  helpers  should  be  supplied,  where  the  honorary  secretary  deems  it 

necessary,  with  stamped  envelopes  for  the  return  of  the  reports  by  post. 

(4)  That  head  teachers  be  requested  to  use  every  possible  means  to  obtain 

and  give  the  correct  name  of  the  organization  to  which  a  child  belongs. 

(5)  That  honorary  secretaries  send  to  the  central  care  department  the  name 

of  any  organization  which  does  not  return  the  helpers'  reports. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         691 

5.  Second  reports.   (Sparkbrook  school  care  committee.) 

Mrs.  Jesper  urged  the  necessity  of  the  helper  being  in  close  touch  with  the 
child  at  the  actual  time  of  leaving  school  and  commencing  work,  and  of  sub- 
mitting a  second  report  as  soon  as  the  child  is  placed  at  work.    This  is  the 
critical  time. 
6  and  7.    Branch  care  committees.    (Sparkbrook  school  care  committee.) 

The  formation  of  branch  care  committees  was  advocated,  so  that  school  care 
committees  should  cooperate  and  not  work  as  separate  units  possibly  in  some 
matters  in  competition  with  one  another.  It  was  further  advanced  that  it 
was  a  good  arrangement  to  hold  all  meetings  in  a  district  on  the  same  eve- 
ning in  the  week  but  in  different  weeks  for  different  committees.  The  chair- 
man said  the  policy  of  the  central  care  committee  had  so  far  been  to  set  up 
branch  care  committees  as  soon  as  the  demand  for  one  arose  in  a  district,  and 
to  leave  school  care  committees  freedom  to  make  their  own  arrangements  as 
to  meetings. 

8.  Periodical  bulletin.   (Camden  Street,  etc.,  school  care  committee.) 

Mr.  Mackenzie  moved  that  the  central  care  committee  be  recommended  to 
issue  a  quarterly  bulletin  to  helpers,  giving  instructions,  notes,  and  information 
concerning  the  school  care  committees  and  their  work  throughout  the  city. 
Many  helpers  are  unable  to  attend  meetings  regularly,  and  either  they  lost 
touch  with  the  work,  or  the  honorary  secretary  had  to  send  out  periodically  his 
own  bulletin  compiled  from  various  communications,  circulars,  etc.,  received 
from  the  central  care  department. 

The  opinion  was  expressed  that  the  bulletin,  if  issued,  should  be  supplied 
gratis  and  sent  direct  by  post  from  the  central  care  department.  It  would  relieve 
the  honorary  secretaries  considerably  and  would  keep  the  interest  of  helpers  alive. 

Recommendation  (carried  by  1 1  votes  to  8,  the  majority  not  voting) :  "  That 
the  central  care  committee  be  asked  to  issue  such  a  bulletin  quarterly." 

9.  Head  teachers  and  the  Juvenile  Employment  Exchange.   (Camden  Street, 

etc.,  school  care  committee.) 

Mr.  J.  T.  Booth,  on  behalf  of  his  committee,  raised  the  question  whether 
the  time  had  not  now  arrived  when  all  applications  from  employers  for  boys 
and  girls  should  be  referred  to  the  exchange.  He  stated  that  in  numbers  of 
schools  very  few,  if  any,  children  were  placed  through  the  exchange.  Some 
head  teachers  would  like  to  be  relieved  of  the  responsibility  of  sending  children 
to  work  on  request  from  employers,  and  also  many  children  did  not  get  the 
advantages  the  exchange  might  give  them.  Several  head  teachers  spoke  against 
the  suggestion,  and  the  feeling  of  the  conference  being  against  such  a  step  at 
present,  the  matter  dropped. 

10.  School-leaving  age. 

The  conference  closed  with  announcements  by  the  chairman  concerning 
forthcoming  lectures  to  helpers,  the  first  by  Mr.  C.  E.  B.  Russell,  of  Man- 
chester. There  was  not  time  to  deal  with  the  concluding  item  of  the  agenda ; 
namely,  the  present  state  of  the  central  care  committee's  work. 


692  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


CENTRAL  CARE  COMMITTEE 

Juvenile  Employment  Exchanges  and  Domestic  Service  for  Girls 

Report  of  the  special  committee  appointed  to  consider  the  draft  scheme  for 
the  appointment  of  a  domestic-service  subcommittee  of  the  central  care 
committee,  to  act  with  the  Juvenile  Employment  Exchange  in  placing 
girls  between  fourteen  and  seventeen  years  of  age  in  domestic  service. 
Your  committee  met  on  February  5,  1913.  .  .  . 

The  subcommittee  were  unanimously  of  opinion  that  full  advantage  should 
be  taken  of  the  permission  now  granted  by  the  Board  of  Trade  to  juvenile  em- 
ployment exchanges  to  undertake,  under  certain  conditions,  the  placing  of  girls 
in  domestic  service,  and  they  accordingly  recommend  that  measures  be  taken  to 
commence  such  work  as  soon  as  possible.  This  recommendation  is  made  on 
the  following  grounds : 

(1)  The  local  education  authority  has,  through  the  medium  of  the  exchange, 
been  able  to  give  guidance  and  assistance  to  girls  leaving  school  in  taking  up 
every  class  of  employment  except  domestic  service,  yet  domestic  service  is  a 
suitable  occupation  and  one  to  be  encouraged  under  proper  conditions. 

Both  head  teachers'  and  helpers'  reports  indicate  domestic  service  as  desired 
and  desirable  in  a  number  of  cases.  It  is  inconsistent  to  refuse  the  helper  and 
the  child  the  same  assistance  as  is  available  in  every  other  occupation. 

(2)  The  existing  means  and  organizations  for  bringing  employers  and  young 
girls  desiring  domestic  service  into  touch  with  each  other  are  inadequate. 

(3)  Judicious  after  care  is  desirable  in  the  case  of  many  girls  placed  in 
domestic  service. 

(4)  Such  a  subcommittee  would  be  able  to  ascertain  what  exactly  are  the 
facilities  in  the  city  for  training  girls  for  domestic  service,  and  to  make  sug- 
gestions for  extension  and  improvement  from  time  to  time. 

Your  committee  examined  the  draft  scheme,  which  in  its  general  lines  has 
already  been  approved  by  the  central  care  committee,  and  are  of  opinion  that 
but  little  alteration  is  necessary.  They  recommend  that  the  subcommittee  should 
consist  of  20  members,  instead  of  1 2  to  1 6  as  previously  suggested,  and  that  its 
constitution  should  be : 

4  Members  of  the  central  care  committee 

4  Representatives  of  the  Girls'  Friendly  Society 

2  Representatives  of  the  Young  Women's  Christian  Association 

2  Representatives  of  Roman  Catholics 

i  Representative  of  Graham  Street  School 

i  Representative  of  the  ladies'  committee  of  the  Sunday  School  Union 

7  Representatives  of  branch  care  committees  and  school  care  committees,  one 

to  represent  each  existing  branch  care  committee,  and  one  to  be  appointed 

from  each  of  four  other  districts  of  the  city. 

Additions  to  the  draft  scheme,  as  referred  to  the  subcommittee,  are  recom- 
mended to  make  clear  (i)  that  the  subcommittee  shall  have  power  to  appoint 


.VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         693 

or  approve  visitors,  and  (2)  that  in  cases  of  girls  placed  by  the  Juvenile 
Employment  Exchange  who  belong  to  or  may  join  certain  organizations, 
for  example,  the  Girls'  Friendly  Society  or  the  Young  Women's  Christian 
Association,  the  supervision  or  after  care  shall  be  referred  to  the  organization 
concerned,  subject  to  such  reports  being  made  as  the  subcommittee  may  deem 
advisable. 

The  scheme  embodying  the  suggested  amendments  would  be  as  follows : 

1.  That  a  domestic-service  subcommittee  be  appointed,  consisting  of  4  mem- 
bers of  the  central  care  committee,  4  representatives  of  the  Girls'  Friendly  Society, 
2  representatives  of  the  Young  Women's  Christian  Association,  2  representa- 
tives of  Roman  Catholics,  i  representative  of  Graham  Street  School, 'i  repre- 
sentative of  the  ladies'  committee  of  the  Sunday  School  Union,  7  representatives 
of  branch  care  committees  and  school  care  committees  (one  to  represent  each 
existing  branch  care  committee  and  one  to  be  appointed  from  each  of  four 
other  districts  of  the  city) ;  and  that  the  subcommittee  have  power  to  appoint 
or  approve  visitors. 

2.  That  the  functions  of  the  subcommittee  be  as  follows:  (i)  To  make 
recommendations  from  time  to  time  to  the  central  care  committee  on  matters 
of  general  policy.    (2)  To  establish  a  rota,  one  member  to  be  present  at  the 
exchange  at  such  times  as  shall  be  arranged  for  the  purpose  of  advising  upon 
the  placing  of  domestic  servants. 

3.  The  duties  of  the  member  present  will  be:  (i)  To  discuss  the  vacancies 
notified  to  the  exchange.   (2)  To  offer  such  advice  as  she  may  deem  desirable 
to  the  exchange  officer.   (3)  To  report  on  the  work  done  to  the  next  meeting 
of  the  committee.   (4)  To  report  to  the  committee  any  cases  requiring  special 
investigation. 

4.  The  duties  of  the  committee  at  its  weekly  meeting  will  be :  (i)  To  receive 
a  report  as  to  the  week's  work.    (2)  To  receive  notifications  from  the  rota 
members  as  to  vacancies  of  which  they  have  advised  acceptance  on  their  own 
responsibility.   (3)  To  consider  the  vacancies  referred  to  them  for  further  in- 
vestigation.   (4)  To  arrange  for  any  investigation  that  may  be  necessary  with 
regard  to  these  vacancies,  and  for  the  result  of  such  investigations  to  be  re- 
ported at  once  to  the  exchange.    (5)  To  receive  and  consider  reports  on  such 
vacancies  as  have  been  specially  investigated.    (6)  To  arrange  for  such  super- 
vision as  may  be  necessary  of  the  girls  placed  by  the  exchange,  referring  girls 
who  belong  or  may  become  attached  to  the  Girls'  Friendly  Society  and  Young 
Women's  Christian  Association  and  similar  organizations  to  these  organizations 
for  supervision  and  report.   (7)  To  receive  the  reports  from  the  helpers  who 
have  undertaken  such  supervision. 

5.  To  confer  twice  yearly  with  the  ladies  acting  as  helpers  in  the  case  of 
girls  placed  in  domestic  service  by  the  exchange,  and  with  others  specially 
interested  in  the  question  of  domestic  service  as  an  occupation  for  girls  and 
in  the  training  necessary  for  it. 


694  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

REPORT  OF  THE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  TO  THE  CENTRAL  CARE 

COMMITTEE 

To  be  presented  at  a  meeting  of  the  central  care  committee  to  be  held  on 
Monday,  April  7,  1913,  at  5  P.M. 

1 .  Domestic-service  subcommittee.    The  five  organizations  which  were  in- 
vited to  cooperate  with  the  central  care  committee  in  placing  young  girls  in 
domestic  service  through  the  Juvenile  Employment  Exchange  have  all  inti- 
mated their  willingness  to  do  so,  and  to  nominate  representatives  on  the 
subcommittee.  .  .  . 

2.  H-ealth  week.    It  is  the  desire  of  the  "  health  week  *'  committee  that  the 
central  care  committee  and  the  school  care  committees  should  assist  in  any 
way  open  to  them  in  the  propaganda  of  "  health  week,"  which  commences  on 
April  27.    Your  chairman  has  invited  the  honorary  secretaries  of  school  care 
committees  to  take  part  in  a  conference  on  the  nth  instant,  and  to  discuss 
the  most  effective  means  of  helping  in  the  work. 

3.  Head  teachers'  reports  —  health  section.  The  hygiene  subcommittee 
have  considered  the  resolution  of  the  central  care  committee  asking  whether 
arrangements  could  be  made  for  the  final  medical  examination  of  school  chil- 
dren to  take  place  sufficiently  long  before  the  date  of  leaving  to  allow  entries 
by  the  medical  officers  to  be  made  on  all  head  teachers'  reports,  which  are 
forwarded  to  the  office  about  four  months  before  the  children  leave  school.  In 
response  the  hygiene  subcommittee  have  passed  the  following  resolution : 

That  the  central  care  committee  be  informed  that  this  subcommittee  will  place 
at  their  disposal  the  schedules  of  all  children  who  have  been  examined  prior  to 
their  leaving  school,  but  that  the  examinations  will  have  extended  over  the  whole 
year  and  will  not  necessarily  have  taken  place  four  months  before  the  children 
leave  school. 

Your  committee  consider  that  the  proposed  alteration  would  give  approxi- 
mately only  the  same  result  as  before,  and  would  involve  a  much  greater 
amount  of  work  in  the  central  care  department  than  the  present  arrangement 
gives  the  medical  staff.  They  therefore  recommend  that  the  hygiene  subcom- 
mittee be  informed  that  the  central  care  committee  would  prefer  the  continu- 
ance of  the  present  system. 

4.  Free  admission  to  evening  schools.  The  attention  of  the  technical  edu- 
cation and  evening  schools  subcommittee  was  invited  to  the  recommendation 
of  several  school  care  committees  to  the  effect  that  there  should  be  means 
available  to  school  care  committees  to  obtain  free  admission  to  evening  schools 
for  children  in  cases  where  the  investigations  of  the  committees  showed  that 
children  were  actually  prevented  from  attending  such  schools  by  inability  to 
pay  the  fees.  The  technical  education  and  evening  schools  subcommittee  on 
the  loth  of  March  resolved  as  follows: 

That  the  central  care  committee  be  informed  that  this  subcommittee  are  sub- 
mitting to  the  education  committee  at  its  meeting  on  the  igth  March  an  amended 
scheme  of  free  admission  to  the  evening  and  technical  schools  of  the  city. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         695 

This  scheme  has  now  been  approved  by  the  education  committee,  and 
empowers  head  teachers  of  day  schools  to  award  a  certain  number  of  free 
admissions  to  evening  schools.  There  is  also  provision  for  award  to  scholars 
already  in  evening  schools  of  free  admissions  to  subsequent  sessions  of  evening 
schools  and  to  technical  schools.  Your  committee  recommend  that  a  communi- 
cation be  sent  to  head  teachers  requesting  that  in  making  their  award  of  free 
admissions  they  will  have  due  regard  to  the  recommendations  of  school  care 
committees. 

5.  Industrial  arrangements-  in  East  Birmingham.  The  East  Birmingham 
branch  care  committee  have  been  successful  in  getting  into  touch  with  several 
of  the  large  firms  in  the  locality  and  securing  their  representation  on  the  branch 
care  committee,  and  on  several  school  care  committees.    This  action  prepared 
the  way  for  arrangements  which  have  been  provisionally  completed  with  the 
Metropolitan  Carriage  &  Wagon  Building  Co.  (Ltd.)  and  the  Wolseley  Tool 
&  Motor  Car  Co.  (Ltd.),  according  to  which  these  firms  will  engage  all  their 
juvenile  employees  through  the  Juvenile  Employment  Exchange,  giving  prefer- 
ence to  those  recommended  through  the  school  care-committee  system  of  the 
district.    Both  firms  will  give  facilities  for  the  boys  to  attend  evening  schools 
and  classes,  and  will  encourage  them  to  do  so. 

6.  Gathering  of  helpers  at  Uffculme.  Through  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Barrow 
Cadbury  the  application  for  the  use  of  Uffculme  for  a  gathering  of  helpers  on 
September  6  next  has  been  successful.    Your  committee  have  appointed  Miss 
Barrow,  Councilor  Chamberlain,  and  the  Rev.  H.  S.  Pelham  to  make  the 
necessary  arrangements  in  due  course. 

7.  Trades  for  physically  defective  children.   In  response  to  a  request  from 
the  special  school  after-care  employment  subcommittee  your  committee  recom- 
mend that  in  the  pamphlets  on  local  trades  now  in  course  of  preparation  an 
appendix  be  inserted  giving  advice  in  regard  to  suitable  employment  for  deaf 
and  physically  defective  children.    The  subcommittee  mentioned  will  so  far  as 
possible  furnish  the  matter  for  the  appendix. 

8.  Receipt  of  grant  from  board  of  education.    The  board  of  education 
have  paid  to  the  education  committee  the  sum  of  ,£236  75.  3d.,  being  the 
board's  contribution  toward  the  salaries  of  the  executive  officers,  from  the 
approval  of  the  scheme  in  July,  1911,  to  December  31,   1912. 

9.  Assistant  caretakers.    It  will  be  remembered  that  some  time  ago  the 
central  care  committee  made  representations  to  the  sites  and  buildings  sub- 
committee concerning  the  position  of  assistant  school  caretakers,  recommend- 
ing that  the  practice  of  discontinuing  their  services  at  the  age  of  twenty-one 
years  should  be  abandoned,  and  that  if  suitable  they  should  be  employed  until 
they  could  be  absorbed  as  caretakers.    The  sites  and  buildings  subcommittee 
were  unable  to  see  their  way  to  make  the  arrangement  suggested.    Your  com- 
mittee have  now  learned  that  the  subcommittee  have  decided  to  make  such 
appointments  in  future  subject  to  termination  at  nineteen  years  of  age. 

10.  Pamphlets  on  trades  for  boys.    Your  committee  have  had  before  them 
a  complete  set  of  penny  guides  to  trades  and  handicrafts  for  youths  and  girls 


696 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


leaving  school,  issued  by  George  Phillip  &  Son  (Ltd.),  of  which  about  twenty 
have  been  published.  They  feel  that  a  set  comprising  the  books  on  each  of 
the  local  trades  would  be  of  much  value  to  the  school  care  committees,  and 
they  therefore  recommend  that  sufficient  sets  be  purchased  to  furnish  one  set 
to  each  school  care  committee. 

1 1 .  Return  based  on  head  teachers'  reports.  The  following  is  a  statement 
compiled  from  the  head  teachers'  reports  received  during  February  in  respect 
of  children  due  to  leave  school  before  the  end  of  June : 


ALL  SCHOOLS 

SCHOOLS  WITH  CARE 
COMMITTEES 

Boys 

Girls 

Total 

Per 
cent 

Boys 

Girls 

Total 

Per 
cent 

Number  of  cards  received  .     . 

516 

SM 

1030 

— 

359 

331 

690 

67.0 

Number  of  children  attached 

to  some  organization  . 

337 

360 

697 

67.7 

242 

247 

489 

78.7 

Number  of  children  who  prom- 

ised to  attend  some  evening 

school    

279 

i54 

433 

42.0 

199 

no 

3°9 

44.8 

Number    of    medical    reports 

appearing  on  head  teachers' 

reports  

IQ2 

2IO 

402 

1Q  O 

I-7C 

1  18 

271 

IQ  6 

Number  of  those  examined  re- 

quiring medical  attention 

26 

46 

72 

19.9 

21 

28 

49 

18.0 

Number  of  cards  marked  with  discriminatory  letter    .    .    .  937,  or  91  per  cent 

Number  of  cards  marked  A 183,  or  19.5  per  cent 

Number  of  cards  marked  B 384,  or  41  per  cent 

Number  of  cards  marked  C 3,70,  or  39.5  per  cent 

Number  of  cards  not  marked 93,  or  9  per  cent 


SCHOOL  STANDARD  ATTAINED  BY  CHILDREN  EXPECTED  TO 
LEAVE  SCHOOL  DURING  JUNE,  1913 


Per  cent 
of  total 


Number  of  cards  marked,  954,  or  92.6  per  cent  of  total  cards  sent  in 

Number  of  children  in 

Ex-seventh  standard 51,  or  5.3 

Seventh  standard 332,  or  34.8 

Sixth  standard 288,  or  30.2 

Fifth  standard 176,  or  18.4 

Fourth  standard 8i,or8.5 

Third  standard 20,  or  2.1 

Second  standard 6,  or  .7 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM 


697 


1 2.  Return  of  employment  obtained  during  February,    The  following  is 
a  statement  concerning  employment  obtained  during  the  month  of  February : 


SCHOOL  CHILDREN  OBTAINING  EMPLOYMENT 

TOTAL 

PER- 
CENTAGE 

Number  of  children  reported  as  having  obtained  employment 
on  leaving  school  

7C2 

Reported  by  head  teachers  as  having  obtained  employment 
through  medium  of  the  school  

C7 

7.e 

Obtained  employment  through  the  Juvenile  Employment  Ex- 
change   

IQO 

2^."? 

Reported  by  head  teachers  as  having  obtained  employment 
by  their  own  or  their  parents'  efforts  

COC 

67.2 

13.  Juvenile  Employment  Exchange  return.  The  following  figures  have 
been  supplied  by  the  Juvenile  Employment  Exchange  in  respect  of  the  four 
weeks  ended  Friday,  March  28,  1913,  namely: 


APPLICATIONS  BY  BOYS 
AND  GIRLS 

VACANCIES  NOTIFIED  BY 
EMPLOYERS 

Boys 

Girls 

Total 

Boys 

Girls 

Total 

206 

33 
39 
36 
4i 
28 

53 
42 

45 

10 

45 
23 

259 

75 
84 
46 
86 

5i 

279 
40 
39 
15 
20 

5 

87 
92 

34 
24 
37 
14 

366 
I32 
73 
39 
57 
19 

Handsworth  exchange      
Selly  Oak  exchange      

Sparkhill  exchange  

Total  (4  weeks)     

383 

218 

601 

398 

288 

686 

Corresponding  totals  for  February, 
ion  (A.  weeks)  . 

509 
601 

384 
320 

863 
921 

466 
496 

367 

235 

833 
73i 

Corresponding  totals  for  March,  191  2 
(5  weeks)  

The  relation  of  the  Birmingham  teachers  to  the  scheme  herein 
outlined  is  real  and  active.  Many  head  teachers  use  commendable 
care  in  the  reports  on  the  children  who  leave  school.  These  re- 
ports indicate  the  groups  of  children  which  in  the  teacher's  judg- 
ment need  a  good  deal  of  after  care,  those  which  need  only  a 
moderate  amount,  and  those  which  need  no  after  care  except  per- 
haps as  to  continued  education.  For  the  first  eight  months  during 


698 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


VACANCIES   FILLED   BY   EMPLOYMENT  EXCHANGES 


• 

VACANCIES  FILLED 

VACANCIES  FILLED  BY 
CHILDREN  DIRECT  FROM 
SCHOOL 

Boys 

Girls 

Total 

Boys 

Girls 

Total 

Central  exchange      

173 
25 
18 

2 

19 

5 

44 
19 

34 
17 
35 
4 

217 
44 

52 
19 

54 
9 

5° 
IO 

4 
8 

22 

9 
6 

7 

22 

72 

19 
10 

7 
30 

Jewelers'  exchange  
Aston  exchange    

Handsworth  exchange      

Selly  Oak  exchange      

Sparkhill  exchange  

Total  (4  weeks)     

242 

153 

395 

72 

66 

138 

Corresponding  totals  for  February, 
ion  ^J.  weeks}  . 

308 
3°4 

253 
153 

561 

457 

98 

92 

190 

84 

Corresponding  totals  for  March,  191  2 
(5  weeks)  

14.  Helpers'  reports.   The  number  of  helpers'  reports  received  from  school 
care  committees  during  each  of  the  last  six  months  is  as  follows : 


FIRST 
REPORTS 

SECOND 
REPORTS 

TOTAL 

October,  1912  

7l6 

316 

November,  1912  

7O2 

141 

843 

December,  1912  

4O  T, 

IO7 

mo 

January,  1913  

278 

IQ 

2Q7 

February,  ion 

44Q 

28 

477 

March,  1913     

CJ-J 

nc 

608 

Total 

2661 

TOO 

"UK  I 

which  these  records  were  kept,  nearly  half  of  about  9000  cases 
were  referred  to  the  school  care  committees,  which  in  turn  called 
upon  the  helpers  for  assistance.  Many  organizations  in  Birming- 
ham, particularly  those  interested  in  boys,  have  been  enlisted  in 
the  scheme.  Here  social  workers  and  teachers,  as  is  the  case  in 
Boston,  New  York,  Cincinnati,  and  other  cities,  have  been  giving 
their  time  and  their  energy  generously  to  the  work.  Parents'  meet- 
ings are  carried  on  by  many  school  care  committees.  Employers 
are  often  the  speakers  at  such  meetings. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         699 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Birmingham  experiment 
coincides  with  an  unusual  state  of  industrial  prosperity.  There  are 
more  vacancies  than  there  are  boys.  Such  trades  as  the  engineer- 
ing, brass,  jewelry,  and  silversmiths  cannot  secure  enough  appren- 
tices. They  are  glad  to  have  the  Juvenile  Employment  Exchange 
select  workers,  even  for  the  more  advanced  positions.  This  is  due 
somewhat  to  the  improved  quality  of  the  applicants  who  come  to 
these  labor  exchanges.  It  has  been  the  practice  of  teachers  even 
in  cities  where  labor  exchanges  are  maintained  to  look  after  the 
brightest  children  themselves,  or  the  favorites  of  the  school,  and 
leave  to  the  labor  exchange  the  difficult  children.  Obviously  this 
is  not  cooperation.  In  Birmingham,  on  the  other  hand,  many  of 
the  schools  make  a  point  of  advising  all  the  children  who  leave 
school  to  go  with  their  parents  to  the  exchanges.  There  is  still 
a  good  deal  of  placement  by  the  schools,  and  it  is  greatly  to  be 
hoped  that  this  will  in  time  diminish,  if  not  wholly  disappear. 

With  reference  to  girl  labor,  Birmingham  presents  the  problem 
characteristic  of  our  own  American  cities.  The  girls  desire  office 
work,  and  too  many  take  courses  in  shorthand  and  typewriting. 
The  start  in  life  for  these  girls  is  difficult  indeed  and  the  outcome 
quite  unsatisfactory.  The  market  for  stenographers  and  office 
workers  is  overstocked.  The  element  amongst  whom  the  exchange 
renders  its  most  useful  service  is  that  group  of  girls  who,  desiring 
a  manual  occupation,  have  been  guided  into  the  better  trades,  such 
as  bookbinding,  leather  stitching,  etc.  As  in  the  case  of  the  boys, 
there  is  a  great  demand  for  girl  labor.  The  city  has  not  adequately 
faced,  and  few  cities  have  faced,  the  problem  of  vocational  train- 
ing for  girls.  Two  useful  handbooks  have  been  issued  by  the  cen- 
tral care  committee  as  part  of  a  series  on  the  principal  trades  and 
occupations  in  Birmingham.  One  deals  with  the  various  trades  for 
women  and  girls  ;  the  other  on  printing  and  allied  trades.  There 
is  much  effort  to  secure  continued  training  in  evening  schools  for 
the  children  placed. 

An  idea  of  the  occupations  for  boys  and  girls  and  the  number 
placed  from  June  i,  191 1,  to  October  31,  1912,  may  be  gained  from 
the  tables  which  follow,  but  it  should  be  explained  that  the  figures 
with  reference  to  the  messengers,  stable  boys,  etc.,  apply  mostly  to 


/oo 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


JUVENILE   EMPLOYMENT   EXCHANGE   RETURN   SHOWING  THE    NUMBER   OF 

VACANCIES  NOTIFIED  AND  THE  NUMBER  OF  VACANCIES  FILLED,  CLASSIFIED 

UNDER  DIFFERENT  TRADES  OR  OCCUPATIONS1 


TRADES  AND  OCCUPATIONS 

VACAN- 
CIES 

NOTI- 
FIED 

VACAN- 
CIES 

FILLED 

TRADES  AND  OCCUPATIONS 

VACAN- 
CIES 

NOTI- 
FIED 

VACAN- 
CIES 

FILLED 

OCCUPATIONS  FOR  BOYS 
Telegraph  messenger  service  . 

83 
26 

80 

18 

OCCUPATIONS  FOR  BOYS 

(CONTINUED) 

Miscellaneous  employments  2 

80 

*Af\ 

Van  boys,   stable  and  groom 

6270 

3965 

Warehouse    

384 

235 

OCCUPATIONS  FOR  GIRLS 

Messenger  and  porter  service 

•     581 

"5 

434 

Domestic  service  (daily  girls) 

Daily  service    

47 

18 

Clerking  

118 

06 

286 

Blacksmithing   

42 

7 

Errand-girl  service    .... 

83 

Engineering  (general)     .     .     . 

323 

269 

iS< 

Core  making     

21 
26 

20 

Drilling,  milling     

374 

302 

Press,  drill,  and  capstan  work 

456 

148 

Screw  working      

8 

Gun  manufacturing    .... 

24 

22 

White-metal  working     .     .     . 

94 

43 

328 

181 

18 

Cycle  making  

65 

Jewelry  working  

148 

64 

Goldsmith,     silversmith,     and 
jeweler  work  
Electrical  apparatus  making    . 

383 
40 

168 
29 
76 

General  factory  working    .     . 
Electrical  working    .... 
Weighing  apparatus  making  . 
French  polisning  

58 
39 
'5 

12 
21 

18 

Painting  and  decorating  .     .     . 
Plumbing  and  gas  fitting     .     . 

55 
i39 

20 

49 

Upholstering    
Cartridge  making      .... 
Candle  making     

22 
270 

17 

267 

26 

Soap  making    

16 

Wood  carving  and  engraving  . 

Rubber  work    

60 

Glass  manufacture      .... 

7S 

43 
18 

Paper-bag  making     .... 
Printing  

50 
128 

33 

28 

Printing  and  bookbinding   . 

Tailoring     

Tailoring  

Dressmaking    

ii 

Bootmaking  

8 

Machinists'  trade      .... 

?6 

Button  making                    .    , 

68 

6? 

ture  

16 

Cocoa  and  chocolate  making 

667 

678 

8 

Shop  service     

ture  

Factory  work   

280 

gc 

Butchering    

Miscellaneous  employments8 

83 

Electrical  engineering 

62 

Total  

1  The  numbers  refer  to  all  children  placed  from  fourteen  to  seventeen  years  of  age  in 
the  period  June  i,  1911,  to  October  31,  1912. 

2  Under  this  heading  have  been  included  all  trades  and  occupations  in  each  of  which  less 
than  seven  boys  were  placed.   They  include  architecture,  photography,  gardening,  assistant 
caretakers,  railway  service,  colliery  workers,  diesinking,  lamp  making,  motor  and  carriage 
building,  ironmongers,  scientific,  surgical,  weighing,  and  electrical  instrument  making,  brick- 
laying and  plastering,  brick  and  tile  manufacture,  French  polishing,  manufacturing  chemists, 
candle  and  grease  manufacture,  paper,  envelope,  and  cardboard-box  manufacture,  drapery  and 
clothing  trades,  japanning,  pawnbroking,  and  various  dealers. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         701 


boys  over  sixteen,  and  that  many  of  the  employers  have  placed  the 
boys  in  these  positions  after  an  understanding  with  the  labor-exchange 
officials  that  advancement  was  fairly  certain  after  a  few  months. 

RETURNS  SHOWING  THE  VACANCIES  FILLED  BY  CHILDREN 
DIRECT  FROM  SCHOOL  THROUGH  THE  EXCHANGE1 
BOYS 

Telegraph  messenger  service  .    .  80 

Drawing  offices 10 

Hotel  service 10 

Office  work 114 

Van-boy  and  stableboy  work,  etc.  3 

Warehouse 32 

Messenger  (preliminary  to  various 

trades) 84 

Gardening 2 

Tube  mills 2 

Rolling  mill 3 

Brass  working 28 

Blacksmithing i 

Engineering  (mechanical)     ...  54 

Polishing  (metal) 6 

Tool  making 46 

Gun  making 5 

Miscellaneous  metal  trades  ...  23 

Cycle  trade 5 

Motor  trade 9 

Jewelry,  silversmiths,  etc.     ...  55 

Electrical  fittings  manufacture      .  12 

Carpentering  and  joining      ...  13 

Plumbing  and  gas  fitting  ....  8 


BOYS  (CONTINUED) 

Furniture,  cabinetmaking,  etc.      .  10 

Glass  trade 3 

Rubber  manufacture 8 

Leather  manufacture 3 

Brush  trade i" 

Printing,  bookbinding,  etc.  ...  30 

Tailoring 3 

Boot  trade 2 

Cocoa  and  chocolate  manufacture  85 

Grocery  work 2 

Electrical  engineering 12 

Laboring  in  factories 9 

Total 683 

GIRLS 

Pupil-teacher  work r 

Theater  service i 

Laundry-maid  service 2 

Day-servant  work 21 

Clerk  work 50 

Warehouse-girl  service     ....  104 

Errand  service 6 

Florist  service  .  i 


The  following  circulars  issued  by  the  central  care  committee 
are  of  interest : 

CITY  OF  BIRMINGHAM  EDUCATION  COMMITTEE 
CENTRAL  CARE  COMMITTEE 

To  boys  about  to  leave  school  : 

i.  You  will  be  leaving  school  very  soon  —  in  a  few  months  probably.    It  is 
most  important  that  you  should  carefully  choose  the  kind  of  work  you  want  to  do. 

8  Under  this  heading  have  been  included  all  trades  and  occupations  in  each  of  which  less 
than  seven  girls  were  placed.  They  include  pupil  teacher,  theater  service,  telephone  service, 
pen  makers,  wireworkers,  opticians,  shroud  makers,  glassworkers,  brush  makers,  rope  and 
canvas  workers,  milliners,  mineral-water  manufacture,  restaurant  workers,  pawnbrokers,  etc. 
l  The  numbers  are  given  in  respect  of  the  various  trades  and  occupations,  and  cover  the 
period  January  i  to  November  30,  1912. 


702  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

2.  Talk  over  now  with  your  parents  and  your  teacher  what  sort  of  work 
you  would  like,  and  what  would  suit  you  best. 

3.  Think  of  the  future.    There  are  many  well-paid  jobs  for  boys  which  end 
when  you  are  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  old,  and  which  do  not  train  you  for 
anything  else.    If  you  go  to  work  of  this  kind,  you  will  find  it  very  hard  to 
make  a  fresh  start  at  eighteen.    You  will  probably  be  out  of  work  a  good 
deal  and  have  low  wages  when  you  are  a  man. 

4.  Try  to  become  a  skilled  workman.    Learn  a  trade  if  you  get  the  chance. 
Your  wages  will  very  likely  be  less  while  you  are  learning  the  trade,  but  you 
will  be  much  better  off  later  on.   Aim  at  being  a  first-class  workman,  and  do 
not  be  satisfied  to  become  only  half-skilled. 

5.  If  you  or  your  parents  want  to  know  more  about  different  trades  and 
occupations,  go  to  the  Employment  Exchange  for  Boys  at  168  Corporation 
Street,  or  to  the  exchange  nearest  to  you.    If  you  want  help  in  getting  a  suit- 
able situation,  call  at  the  exchange  a  week  or  two  before  you  leave  school  and 
get  your  name  put  on  the  register.    Ask  your  parents  to  go  with  you. 

6.  Someone  from  the  school  care  committee  will  very  likely  call  at  your 
home  to  talk  over  your  future  with  you  and  your  parents,  and  to  help  you  in 
any  way  he  can. 

7.  Stay  at  the  day  school  as  long  as  you  can.    When  you  leave,  join  some 
evening  school  or  class,  and  choose  those  classes  which  will  help  you  in  your 
work.    What  you  learn  will  be  a  great  help  to  you. 

8.  If  your  situation  is  a  good  one  with  a  promising  future,  stick  to  it  through 
thick  and  thin.    Even  if  you  think  it  is  not  a  good  one,  do  not  leave  it  until 
you  have  got  something  really  better. 

9.  Before  leaving  ask  advice  from  your  parents,  your  old  schoolmaster,  or 
your  care-committee  friend.    Also  go  to  the  exchange  some  Friday  evening 
between  6  and  7  P.M. 

10.  If  you  are  out  of  work,  go  to  the  exchange  any  morning.    The  manager 
will  be  glad  to  see  you  and  to  help  you  to  get  a  suitable  situation.    But  beware 
of  moving  from  place  to  place  without  good  reason.    It  is  sure  to  be  a  bad 
thing  for  you  in  the  end  if  you  do  this.1 

CITY  OF  BIRMINGHAM  EDUCATION  COMMITTEE 

CENTRAL  CARE  COMMITTEE 
Juvenile  employment  —  A  word  to  parents 

To  what  work  do  you  intend  to  put  your  children  when  they  leave  school  ? 
What  trade  or  other  calling  have  you  in  view  for  your  boy,  what  employment 
for  your  girl?  What  are  they  best  fitted  for,  and  likely  to  succeed  in?  Have 
you  carefully  thought  the  matter  out,  and  made  the  best  possible  plans  ?  These 
questions  are  of  the  greatest  importance  to  you  and  your  children. 

Many  of  you  are  probably  undecided.    Some  of  you  perhaps  do  not  fully 

1  A  list  of  exchanges  follows  with  the  hours  when  open. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BIRMINGHAM         703 

know  what  the  commerce  and  industries  of  the  city  have  to  offer  in  the  way 
of  employment  for  juveniles. 

The  education  committee,  acting  with  the  Board  of  Trade,  have  adopted 
a  big  scheme  for  giving  you  information  and  for  helping  you  to  place  your 
children  in  situations  to  the  greatest  advantage. 

A  central  juvenile  employment  exchange  has  been  opened  in  Corporation 
Street,  with  branches  in  different  parts  of  the  city.  Your  boys  and  girls  up  to 
seventeen  years  of  age  are  cordially  invited  to  call  at  the  exchanges  when  in 
want  of  a  situation.  You  and  they  should  go  there  when  in  need  of  information 
and  advice  about  employment.  Especially  should  you  consult  the  exchange  if 
you  have  a  child  who  will  be  leaving  school  soon,  and  it  is  best  to  go  some 
weeks  before  the  child  is  due  to  leave. 

You  may  ask  why  there  is  any  need  to  change  the  present  way  in  which 
children  find  work,  that  is,  by  their  friends  or  relations  speaking  for  them,  by 
looking  in  the  papers,  or  by  walking  round  the  different  factories  in  the  district. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  you  will  have  a  larger  number  of  situations  from  which 
to  choose  at  our  exchanges,  as  most  of  the  good  employers  all  over  the  town 
will  be  getting  their  workers  from  them.  Your  child  will  thus  be  more  certain 
to  get  there  a  situation  suited  to  its  health,  its  powers,  and  its  personal  ambi- 
tions. If  a  child  gets  a  job  for  which  it  is  fitted  and  which  it  likes,  it  will  do 
better  and  be  happier  than  if  it  has  to  take  a  job  in  the  casual  and  uncertain 
way  which  is  now  usual.  Nor  will  it  take  so  long  or  mean  as  much  tramping 
about  and  so  many  useless  inquiries  as  now. 

You  will  also  be  able  to  find  out  more  correctly  and  more  fully  the  condi- 
tions and  prospects  in  any  trade,  for  the  ladies  or  gentlemen  in  charge  of  the 
exchanges  will  always  be  glad  to  give  you  advice  if  you  care  to  ask  them. 

In  many  of  the  schools  we  are  also  starting  care  committees,  whose  mem- 
bers will  take  a  personal  interest  in  the  child  during  the  first  three  or  four 
anxious  years  of  its  working  life.  They  will  take  especial  trouble  with  children 
when  they  are  about  to  leave  the  day  school  for  good.  Just  before  this  hap- 
pens some  member  of  the  care  committee,  perhaps  already  known  to  you,  will 
be  only  too  glad  to  talk  over  with  you  and  your  child  the  plans  for  the  future ; 
the  teachers,  too,  have  very  kindly  promised  their  help.  This  will  be  very  use- 
ful to  you,  as  they  have  great  opportunities  of  finding  out  the  sort  of  work  at 
which  the  child  will  be  happiest  and  do  best. 

We  are  also  hoping  that  the  care  committee  will  be  able  to  arrange  for  meet- 
ings of  parents,  when  the  different  trades  can  be  discussed  and  questions  asked. 

Everyone  realizes  that  the  way  a  child  starts  on  its  working  life  will  settle 
its  whole  career,  and  that  the  time  is  the  most  important  in  its  whole  life. 
Unless  a  child  starts  at  the  work  for  which  it  is  best  suited  from  the  point  of 
view  of  health,  character,  and  ability,  it  will  suffer  throughout  its  life,  and  will 
be  deprived  of  a  real  chance  of  success.  Unless  a  child  begins  to  learn  a  trade 
young,  it  will  never  learn  it  well.  It  is  to  help  those  parents  who  realize  this, 
and  to  arouse  those  few  who  do  not  yet  realize  it,  that  we  are  starting  this 
scheme,  and  we  hope  very  much  that  you  will  support  it  in  every  way  you  can. 


MEDICAL  INSPECTION  AT  THE  START  IN  LIFE 
BY  MEYER  BLOOMFIELD 

(From  "  The  School  and  the  Start  in  Life,"  United  States  Bureau  of 
Education  Bulletin,  1914) 

Every  part  of  the  United  Kingdom  has  its  certifying  factory 
surgeons,  so  called,  appointed  by  the  chief  inspector  of  factories. 
There  are  altogether  2000  of  these  officers,  who  are  frequently  also 
medical  officers  of  health,  and,  most  unfortunately,  are  paid  for  the 
examination  of  children  by  fees  from  the  employers.  The  duties 
of  the  factory  surgeons,  under  the  Factory  and  Workshops  Act  of 
1901  and  1907,  and  the  order  of  the  Secretary  of  State  are  : 

1 .  To  examine  every  child  or  young  person  under  the  age  of  sixteen  within 
seven  days  (or  thirteen  days  in  the  rare  cases  where  the  surgeon's  residence  is 
more  than  3  miles  from  the  place  of  work)  of  his  commencement  of  work  in 
a  factory  or  in  any  workshop  where  one  or  more  of  the  following  processes 
are  carried  on :  file  cutting,  carriage  building,  rope  and  twine  making ;  brick 
and  tile  making;  making  of  iron  and  steel  cables,  chains,  anchors,  grapnels, 
and  cart  gear ;    making  of  nails,  screws,  rivets ;    baking  bread,  biscuits,  or 
confectionery;  fruit  preserving;  making,  altering,  ornamenting,  finishing,  or 
repairing  wearing  apparel  by  the  aid  of  the  treadle  sewing  machines. 

2.  To  make  certain  examinations  and  inquiries  in  connection  with  accidents, 
workmen's  compensation  cases  and  dangerous  trades. 

It  should  be  noted  that,  under  the  Factory  and  Workshops  Act, 
a  worker  under  the  age  of  sixteen  must  be  reexamined  each  time 
he  changes  his  place  of  employment.  "  Half-timers,"  that  most 
pitiful  class  of  spent  children,  must  also  be  reexamined  when  they 
commence  employment  as  "  full-timers."  Something  like  500,000 
examinations  are  made  annually.  In  1910  nearly  8500  children 
were  rejected  as  being  physically  unfit  for  employment.  In  about 
6000  cases  the  surgeons  exercised  their  powers  with  more  or  less 
care  under  the  Factory  and  Workshops  Act  (1901)  to  grant  "  con- 
ditional certificates  "  ;  for  example,  pass  the  child  for  employment 

704 


MEDICAL  INSPECTION  AT  THE  START  IN  LIFE     705 

subject  to  exclusion  from  certain  processes  entailing  danger.  In 
1911  the  number  of  young  persons  rejected  from  employment 
amounted  to  10,000.  Some  juvenile  advisory  committees  have 
undertaken  to  follow  up  cases  of  boys  and  girls  rejected  by  the 
certifying  surgeons  and  to  find  them  suitable  employment  if  any 
employment  is  desirable.  There  is  very  great  need  of  coordinating 
the  activities  of  factory  surgeons,  medical  officers,  and  the  advisory 
committees.  No  one  more  keenly  appreciates  the  present  unsatis- 
factory situation  than  does  Sir  George  Newman,  the  chief  medical 
officer  of  the  Board  of  Education.  In  the  United  Kingdom,  as  in 
the  United  States,  there  has  been  little  intelligent  effort  to  corre- 
late the  work  of  employment  health  inspection  with  the  social 
needs  of  the  children. 

Cooperation  is  essential  from  every  viewpoint.  There  is  noth- 
ing to  prevent  the  child  rejected  at  the  factory  gate  by  the  factory 
surgeon  from  obtaining  employment  in  an  occupation  outside  the 
factory  act  and  removed  from  any  legal  scrutiny,  employment  often 
infinitely  more  harmful  physically  than  that  from  which  he  has 
been  rejected.  Because  the  home  and  the  school  figure  so  little 
in  the  present  methods  of  medical  factory  inspection,  the  rejected 
child  is  frequently  unable  to  explain  to  the  parent  the  physician's 
reason  for  rejection.  The  factory  act  stipulates  that  a  written  expla- 
nation of  the  reason  for  rejection  shall  be  given,  but  this  provision 
is  a  dead  letter.  An  exceptional  illustration  of  the  cooperation 
here  suggested  may  be  found  in  the  efficient  work  of  the  medical 
officer  (school)  for  Dewsbury.  In  this  instance  there  is  the  fortu- 
nate fact  that  the  medical  officer  is  also  the  certifying  factory  sur- 
geon, a  situation  which  gives  him  the  opportunity  to  see  the  child 
in  school  before  employment,  and  in  the  places  of  employment  at 
the  time  of  being  engaged. 

This  physician  has  made  it  his  business,  wholly  on  his  own 
initiative,  to  notify  the  Dewsbury  advisory  committee  for  juvenile 
employment  of  the  rejections  made  which  needed  the  attention 
of  the  committee.  The  committee's  secretary  or  some  member 
visits  the  parent  until  the  children  obtain  suitable  employment  or 
medical  treatment.  In  addition  to  giving  information  of  rejected 
cases,  another  group  of  children  are  also  reported  to  the  advisory 


706  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

committee.  A  certifying  factory  surgeon  meets  with  certain  chil- 
dren who  may  have  some  defect  which  careful  treatment  can 
remedy  and  thus  prevent  later  and  more  serious  obstacles  to 
passing  a  medical  inspection. 

The  following  table  shows  the  cases  of  all  kinds  reported  by  the 
Dewsbury  certifying  factory  surgeon  to  the  advisory  committee 
and  dealt  with  during  the  year  1911  to  April,  1912  : 

Cases  notified  as  rejected  from  employment 52 

Cases  where  conditions  have  improved  and  the  children  are 

now  in  suitable  employment 19 

Cases  where  children  have  received  medical  treatment  and  are 

now  in  suitable  employment 31 

Cases  of  children  unfit  for  employment 2 

Cases  of  delicate  children  in  employment  notified 24 

Total  number  of  cases  rejected  and  delicate  visited  and  re- 
ported on 76, 

On  the  following  page  is  an  interesting  table  of  cases  in  con- 
nection with  the  Dewsbury  work,  interesting  because  of  the  com- 
ments recorded  on  the  conditional  certificates. 

The  Dewsbury  advisory  committee  has  made  an  investigation 
not  only  of  working-children,  but  also  of  school  children  who  work 
out  of  hours,  an  evil  which  does  not  as  a  rule  come  to  the  notice 
of  the  medical  or  any  other  officers . 

These  surveys  of  the  range  of  employments  in  which  children 
are  found,  and  of  the  working  hours  of  children  whose  energies 
are  presumed  to  be  dedicated  to  the  state  in  the  work  of  growth 
and  self-improvement,  are  suggestive  of  the  possible  disclosures, 
once  advisory  committees,  schools,  and  medical  officers  unite,  as 
they  should,  in  a  comprehensive  policy  of  protecting  youth.  There 
have  been  not  a  few  investigations  into  the  physical  condition  of 
working  school  children.  While  differences  in  the  health  of  such 
children*  have  been  found  to  be  dependent  in  part  upon  the  nature 
of  the  occupation,  the  strain,  confinement,  etc.,  all  indications 
point  to  beginning  work  at  too  early  an  age  as  a  prime  source  of 
breakdown  and  later  incapacity.  There  is  a  wealth  of  suggestive 
material  to  be  found  in  the  reports  and  investigation  of  a  number 
of  school  medical  officers.  One  of  them  will  be  briefly  summarized. 


MEDICAL  INSPECTION  AT  THE  START  IN  LIFE     707 


YEAR 

REASON 

WORK  ALLOWED 

WORK   FORBIDDEN 

1908 
1909 
1910 

i.  Lateral    curvature    of 
spine 
2.  Defective  vision  .    .     . 
i.  Defective  vision,  lateral 
nystagmus   (congeni- 
tal) 
i.  Mentally  somewhat  dull 

2.  Too  young  

Attend  loom 

Folding  blankets 
Simple  handwork,  and  gen- 
eral errand  work  in  pat- 
ent-glazing factory 
Paper-box  making  by  hand 

Making  firewood  into  bun- 

Not to  lift  heavy  baskets, 
etc. 
Machine  work 
\York  with  machinery 

Anything  to  do  with  cutting 
or  machinery  of  any  kind 

dles 
Errand  boy     .              , 

machinery,  or  carry  heavy 
weights 

4.  Small  stature  .... 

Errand  boy      

machinery,  or  carry  heavy 
weights 
Not  to  chop  wood,  work  at 

1911 

i.  Left  knock-knee  .     .     . 

2.  Operation    for    hernia 
years  ago 
3.  Small  stature  .... 

Fringing  machine,  as  this 
allows  sitting 
Ordinary  work     .... 

Giving  in    

machinery,  or  carry  heavy 
weights 
Work    necessitating    pro- 
longed standing 
No     lifting     or     carrying 
weights 
No  weight  lifting  or  work 

IQI2 

4.  Knock-knee     .... 
5.  Heart  disease  .... 
i.  Small  stature  .... 

Sew  buttons  on  blouses    . 
Sew  buttons  on  blouses    . 
Giving  in    

with  machinery  in  motion 
Not  to  use  machines 
Not  to  use  machines 
Nothing  else  in  connection 

2.  Small  stature  .... 

Winding     

with  weaving 
Nothing     entailing     over- 

3. Post  laparotomy  scar    . 

Light  work  in  connection 
with  printing 

reaching  or  weight  lifting 
Prolonged  standing  or  ma- 
chine work 

1.  Paper  boys,  89.    Get  up  between  5.30  and  6  A.M.;  usually  have  a  piece 
of  bread  and  perhaps  some  tea  before  they  leave  home ;  hasten  to  the  station 
or  news-agent's  shop,  which  may  be  as  much  as  2  miles  away  from  their  homes, 
for  bundles  of  papers,  take  the  papers  to  various  houses ;  length  of  round 
varies ;    time  taken  varies  accordingly  from  one  to  two  and  one-half  hours ; 
then  a  hasty  breakfast  at  home  before  going  to  school.    Many  of  the  boys 
have  an  evening  round  also.    The  average  wage  is  2s.  6d.  per  week;  some  of 
the  boys  who  sell  papers,  in  addition  to  delivering  them  to  regular  customers, 
get  a  commission  on  the  number  sold,  and  earn  from  4d.  to  6d.  per  week. 
Their  corrected  average  height  was  I  inch,  and  weight  2^  pounds,  less  than 
those  of  the  383  boys  not  employed  out  of  school  hours.    Slight  spinal  curva- 
ture was  found  to  be  more  frequent  among  these  boys  than  among  those 
employed  otherwise,  owing  to  the  heavy  bundles  of  papers  carried. 

2.  Milk  boys,  37.  Get  up  between  4.30  and  5.30  A.M.  ;  have  a  morsel  of  food 
before  leaving  home,  rounds  generally  take  three  hours  or  longer,  afterwards 


708  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

a  hurried  breakfast,  often  eaten  on  the  way  to  school.  Some  of  these  boys 
go  around  again  during  the  dinner  hour,  some  when  afternoon  school  is 
over.  Their  average  wage  is  2s.  6d.  per  week.  The  corrected  average  height 
of  these  boys  was  i  inch,  and  weight  -|  pound,  less  than  those  of  the  383  boys 
not  employed.  Those  who  had  worked  for  two  years  or  more  were  found  to 
be  2  inches  and  3  pounds  below  the  average. 

3.  Errand  boys,  66.    These  boys  spend  most  of  their  spare  time  in  the 
dinner  hour  and  in  the  evening  in  delivering  parcels  or  baskets  of  provisions ; 
they  often  carry  heavy  weights,  and  are  apt  to  take  very  hurried  meals.    They 
generally  earn  2  s.  or  2  s.  6  d.  a  week.   Their  average  height  and  weight  were 
not  found  to  differ  much  from  the  normal,  but  some  who  had  worked  for  two 
years  or  more  were  found  to  be  as  much  as  i^  inches  and  5  pounds  below 
normal. 

4.  House  boys,  77.    Employed  in  the  early  mornings  to  clean  boots  and 
knives,  carry  coals,  and  so  forth,  in  private  houses.    Get  up  about  6.30  A.M.  ; 
work  for  one  or  two  hours  before  school ;  are  often  provided  with  breakfast  by 
their  employers.    They  earn  about  2s.  a  week.    These  are  picked  boys  who 
work  under  good  conditions.   Those  examined  were  found  to  be  on  the  average 
£  inch  taller  and  2  pounds  heavier  than  the  nonemployed  boys. 

5.  Boys  employed  in  miscellaneous  occupations ;  for  example,  garden  boys 
and  barber's  boys,  41.    Little  or  no  difference  was  found  between  these  and 
the  nonemployed  boys. 

6.  Boys  employed  on  Saturdays,  and  sometimes  Sundays,  as  golf  caddies 
or  as  errand  boys  (38)  were  found  to  be  of  normal  height  and  weight  for 
their  age. 

The  success  of  the  experiment  in  Dewsbury  has  led  the  advisory 
committees  in  other  places  to  seek  the  cooperation  of  certifying 
surgeons.  Some  sort  of  cooperation  has  been  secured  or  promised 
in  Huddersfield,  Leeds,  Halifax,  Nottingham,  Northampton,  and 
in  other  towns.  In  Huddersfield  the  education  committee  passed 
a  resolution  authorizing  the  school  nurses  to  assist  the  secretary 
of  the  juvenile  employment  advisory  committee  in  following 
up  cases. 

The  relation  of  medical  supervision  to  the  right  start  in  vocation 
is  clear  enough.  Inspection  at  the  leaving  stage  is  indispensable. 
All  vocational  counseling,  labor-exchange  service,  and  after  care 
must  take  their  cue  from  the  physician's  report.  Examination  at 
this  stage  reveals  the  results  of  school  life,  home  environment, 
incidental  employment,  and  the  inheritance  of  the  candidate  for  a 
calling.  This  examination,  furthermore,  is  of  peculiar  interest  to 


MEDICAL  INSPECTION  AT  THE  START  IN  LIFE     709 

the  English  people,  because  the  children  of  this  age  are  nearing 
the  insurable  age  under  the  Insurance  Act.  At  no  other  period  in 
a  youth's  life  is  medical  supervision  more  necessary,  and  from  a 
public  viewpoint  more  urgent.  The  prevailing  practice  in  all  the 
countries  studied,  as  with  our  own,  shows  a  too  slight  regard  for 
this  vital  matter.  The  whole  scheme  of  factory  legislation,  voca- 
tional schools,  and  social  legislation  in  general,  rests  on  insecure 
foundations  if  the  medical  supervision  of  adolescent  workers  is 
inefficient.  Medical  investigations  in  England  have  shown  that 
physically  unfit  children  are  liable  to  a  high  degree  of  accident  in 
the  course  of  their  work.  An  intrinsic  value  in  medical  supervision 
is  that  it  supplies  a  method  of  individual  selection  of  the  worker, 
something  no  general  provisions,  such  as  factory  acts,  can  as  well 
accomplish. 

The  Employment  of  Children  Act,  1903,  contains  the  following 
provisions : 

A  child  shall  not  be  employed  to  lift,  carry,  or  move  anything  so  heavy  as 
to  be  likely  to  cause  injury  to  the  child. 

A  child  shall  not  be  employed  in  any  occupation  likely  to  be  injurious  to  his 
life,  limb,  health,  or  education,  regard  being  had  to  his  physical  condition. 

If  the  local  authority  send  to  the  employer  of  any  child  a  certificate  signed 
by  a  registered  medical  practitioner  that  the  lifting,  carrying,  or  moving  of 
any  specified  weight  is  likely  to  cause  injury  to  the  child,  or  that  any  specified 
occupation  is  likely  to  be  injurious  to  the  life,  limb,  health,  or  education  of  the 
child,  the  certificate  shall  be  admissible  as  evidence  in  any  subsequent  proceed- 
ings against  the  employer  in  respect  of  the  employment  of  the  child. 

The  local  authority  is  thus  given  ample  power  medically  to 
guide  the  young  work  seeker.  Instances  are  unfortunately  too  few 
where  the  physician  has  thoroughly  exercised  this  power. 

What  may  yet  be  accepted  as  a  necessity  in  the  English  scheme 
of  vocational  assistance  is  the  appointment  of  special  medical 
officers  for  the  advisory  committees,  who  shall  act  in  a  coordinate 
capacity  with  the  school  medical  officer  and  the  factory  surgeon. 
These  medical  advisers  would  probably  be  assigned  to  work  in 
connection  with  all  the  various  types  of  schools,  such  as  evening 
schools  and  trade  schools,  and  with  the  children  who  use  the 
labor  exchanges. 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

Inspection  at  the  place  or  time  of  employment  goes  only  part 
way.  The  child-helping  schemes  so  extensive  throughout  England 
and  Scotland  need  above  all  else  the  reenforcement  of  a  medical 
department  with  full  powers  to  investigate  occupations  in  their 
relation  to  a  sound  physical  development.  The  absence  of  a 
medical-research  and  health-guidance  department  in  almost  all 
vocational-assistance  enterprises  is  responsible  for  much  of  their 
ineffectiveness. 


SCHOOL  AND   EMPLOYMENT 
BY  MEYER  BLOOMFIELD 

(From  "  The  School  and  the  Start  in  Life,"  United  States  Bureau  of  Education 

Bulletin,  1914) 

This  discussion  will  attempt  to  suggest  an  outline  for  an  Amer- 
can  school  policy  with  respect  to  the  relation  of  our  schools  to  the 
start  in  life  of  their  children,  profiting  so  far  as  possible  by  the 
lessons  and  cautions  of  foreign  experience.  In  the  absence  thus 
far  in  this  country  of  considerable  experience  in  connecting  schools 
with  employment  and  in  organizing  safeguards  for  the  start  in  life, 
it  is  of  course  obvious  that  little  more  than  a  tentative  draft  of  a 
policy  and  of  the  possible  next-steps  can  be  ventured ;  yet  for  all 
that  actual  practice  may  suggest  in  the  way  of  detail,  machinery, 
and  administration,  there  are  certain  principles  fundamental  to 
any  service  connected  with  the  start  in  life.  Experienced  social 
workers,  educators  who  make  their  school  work  function  as  social 
service,  and  efficient  workers  connected  with  the  movements  for 
vocational  guidance  and  education  are  in  no  doubt  as  to  the 
need  of  taking  the  next  steps  and  as  to  what  at  least  one  or  two 
of  these  steps  should  be. 

To  competent  students  of  the  problems  considered  in  this  study, 
it  is  clear  that  a  thorough  scheme  of  vocational  advising  and  of 
training  necessarily  involves  provisions  for  placement,  for  super- 
vision, and  for  methods  of  organized  study  which  are  calculated 
to  yield  material  for  enlightening  public  opinion  and  for  legislative 
action.  Vocational  service  of  any  kind  is  so  large  an  undertaking 
that  specialized  phases  of  it  may  well  occupy  the  whole  time  of 
any  organization,  but  it  is  submitted  that  any  scheme  of  vocational 
service  which  does  not  in  some  way  come  in  direct  contact  with 
the  problems  connected  with  the  actual  start  in  life  of  youth  is  in 
danger  of  finding  itself  an  unreal  undertaking,  busied  with  lifeless 

711 


712  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

abstractions  regarding  shadowy  beings  instead  of  men,  women, 
and  children. 

Participation,  then,  is  here  advocated  as  fundamental  to  any  suc- 
cessful scheme  of  vocational  service  ;  such  participation  as  we  know 
to  be  the  best  feature  of  the  neighborhood  worker's  activities. 
Contact  with  the  practical  world  insures  that  salutary  concreteness 
of  criticism  and  appraisal  which  sound  growth  requires.  Some 
personal  touch  with  boys  and  girls  and  men  and  women  and  the 
trying  out  of  one's  theories  and  capacities  as  a  vocational  counselor 
in  real  experience  are  the  key  to  successful  vocational  assistance. 

KNOWLEDGE  OF  CONDITIONS,  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR 
AN  IDEAL 

Workers  in  the  field  of  vocational  education  and  guidance,  there- 
fore, whether  they  be  in  vocational  schools,  labor  exchanges,  ad- 
visory committees,  or  vocational-guidance  enterprises,  are  expected 
to  face  their  task  from  two  standpoints  when  helping  young  people 
to  a  start  in  life.  They  are  forced,  necessarily,  to  deal  with  the 
working  world  as  they  find  it,  and  they  are  equally  obligated  to 
illumine  their  work  with  an  ideal  of  what  ought  to  be  the  condi- 
tions. A  knowledge  of  existing  conditions  is  the  foundation  of 
the  daily,  personal  service  which  a  vocational  agency  is  called 
upon  to  render ;  but  without  the  corrective  of  a  social  vision  any 
vocational  scheme,  whatever  may  be  its  immediate  practical  bene- 
fits, can  hardly  be  regarded  as  an  important  instrument  of  human 
conservation.  The  knowledge  here  suggested  cannot  be  based  on 
mere  fragmentary  accumulation  of  many  kinds  of  occupational 
details,  gathered  in  the  course  of  visits  to  work  places ;  it  must 
be  knowledge  founded  on  organized  data  gathered  by  the  specialist 
trained  in  the  technic  of  vocational  investigation.  The  vision  and 
ideal  here  suggested  must  not  be  a  vague  and  futile  longing  for 
something  different,  but  an  intelligent  purpose  founded  on  clear 
sight  of  a  goal,  and  expressing  itself  in  aggressive  and  telling  ways. 

It  is  now  trite  to  say  that  school  life  is  sharply  ended  at  the 
option  of  children  who  go  to  work  as  soon  as  the  law  will  let  them. 
Likewise  is  it  now  a  truism  that  this  leaving  time  has  been  mostly 


SCHOOL  AND  EMPLOYMENT  713 

neglected  and  the  children  exposed  to  peculiar  dangers.  The 
child's  entry  into  working  life  has  not  been  on  the  whole  looked 
upon  as  a  special  concern  of  the  school.  Individual  teachers  and 
school  principals  have  always,  doubtless,  taken  an  interest  in  indi- 
vidual children,  or  even  in  entire  classes.  But,  outside  a  few  cities 
in  this  country,  one  will  not  find  any  systematic  and  worth-while 
effort  to  compile  and  interpret  the  work  histories  of  children  who 
have  left  school  for  employment ;  and  few  indeed  are  the  agencies 
which  concern  themselves  with  the  transition  problems  of  youth 
in  the  abyss  between  school  and  work.  There  are,  to  be  sure,  the 
vocational  schools  and  vocational  departments  of  our  high  schools, 
which,  as  a  matter  of  course,  are  more  or  less  active  in  securing 
employment  for  those  whom  they  have  trained.  Not  many  a  school 
has  gone  beyond  the  mere  placement  stage  for  its  pupils,  and  not 
many  have  scrutinized  the  occupations  sufficiently  to  influence 
their  own  curriculum.  But  if  the  vocational  schools,  close  to  work 
conditions  though  they  presumably  are,  and  more  pressingly  re- 
quired than  other  types  of  schools  to  concern  themselves  with  the 
start  in  life,  have,  on  the  whole,  so  little  organized  the  machinery 
and  formulated  the  principles  of  service  in  helping  young  people 
during  the  transition  period,  what  shall  we  say  as  to  the  public 
schools  generally  ? 

The  children  who  leave  the  schools  of  our  country,  whether 
they  graduate  or  drop  out,  are  obliged  to  find  themselves,  some- 
how or  other,  as  workers.  The  schools  have  done  little,  specifi- 
cally, to  point  the  way.  In  a  sense,  the  schools  deserve  much 
praise  for  the  little  they  have  been  doing  toward  a  vocational  start 
in  life ;  for  with  no  resources,  time,  or  preparation,  their  efforts 
in  this  difficult  field  could  only  have  been  absurdly  inadequate  and 
possibly  harmful.  Several  causes  account  for  the  failure  on  the 
part  of  the  public  to  support  the  schools  in  organizing  the  much- 
needed  start  in  life  service.  In  the  first  place,  the  schools  have 
been  kept  so  busy  with  what  is  called  preparing  for  life  that  the 
teachers  have  been  given  no  leisure  for  more  active  contact  with 
that  life.  On  the  whole,  the  American  public  has  not  called  too 
vigorously  for  such  vital  participation  on  the  part  of  the  teachers.  In 
fact,  the  situation  has  not  been  greatly  encouraging  to  that  growing 


714  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

number  of  teachers  who  are  disheartened  over  much  of  the  present 
lifeless  routine  of  fitting  for  life.  The  community  has  been,  on  the 
whole,  too  little  alive  to  the  moral  hazards  and  the  hard  perplexities 
which  the  young  job  seeker  experiences.  Finally,  a  persistent  idea 
regards  work  seeking  and  employment  as  a  private  concern  of  the 
individual,  and  the  employment  bargain  and  all  that  follows  it  as 
nothing  more  than  the  personal  affair  of  the  bargaining  parties. 

INCREASING  INTEREST  IN  YOUTHFUL  WORKERS 

Now  our  best  practice  and  belief  continually  belie  this  obsolete 
notion.  That  society  feels  its  vital  stake  in  all  that  attaches  to  the 
employment  contract,  particularly  of  minors,  is  abundantly  demon- 
strated by  the  great  variety  of  protective  measures  going  forward, 
such  as  school  working  certificates,  health  and  factory  inspection, 
licensing  rules  for  employment  agencies,  and  the  increasing 
number  of  child-labor  laws  and  of  state-aided  vocational-training 
opportunities. 

The  English  system  of  juvenile  advisory  committees  rests  on 
a  clear  recognition  of  society's  duty  to  protect  and  befriend  its 
young  work  beginners.  The  increasing  importance  of  school  peo- 
ple in  the  work  of  these  committees  is  suggestive  of  the  place 
which  the  schools  will  occupy  in  the  near  future  as  guardians  of 
the  adolescent. 

From  two  directions  the  schools  are  compelled  more  and  more 
to  consider  their  relations  to  the  start  in  vocation.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  movements  for  vocational  training  and  guidance  bring 
the  school  face  to  face  with  the  occupational  world  ;  on  the  other, 
the  organization  of  the  labor  market  through  public  employment 
offices,  a  field  in  which  we  have  been  thus  far  lamentably  back- 
ward, will  oblige  the  schools  to  work  out  a  policy  with  respect  to 
these  agencies.  As  yet  few  states  maintain  public  employment 
offices ;  but,  doubtless,  there  will  be  many  more,  as  the  wasteful- 
ness of  present  work-seeking  methods  is  realized.  Nevertheless 
not  many  schools  will  be  satisfied  merely  to  refer  their  leaving 
children  to  a  near-by  public  employment  office,  with  no  voice, 
oversight,  or  power. 


SCHOOL  AND  EMPLOYMENT  715 

To  a  considerable  degree  the  success  of  vocational  guidance 
and  training  efforts  is  conditioned  by  the  thoroughness  of  their 
articulation  with  working  conditions  and  with  social  movements. 
Within  a  well-defined  sphere  of  its  own  in  the  school  system,  voca- 
tional service  is  of  the  utmost  value.  It  endeavors  to  help  pupils 
to  self-knowledge,  and  to  reconstruct  school  programs  in  order  that 
they  may  more  sensitively  minister  to  the  self-discovery  and  eco- 
nomic needs  of  different  pupils.  Vocational  service  —  both  guid- 
ance and  training  are  here  included  —  is  an  instrument  for  talent 
saving  and  for  interpreting  school  life  in  terms  of  career  building. 
In  its  larger  relationships,  however,  vocational  service  is  only  one 
phase  of  the  social  organization  of  school  and  vocation.  It  intro- 
duces into  education  the  motive  of  the  life-career  and  the  idea  of 
fitness  of  the  individual,  apart  from  class  or  group ;  it  introduces 
into  employment  the  idea  of  fitness  of  the  task,  and  appraises  the 
occupations  in  terms  of  career  values  as  well  as  social  worth. 

The  passing  of  the  labor  exchanges  act  was  facilitated  by  the 
belief  that  a  personal  advisory  service  in  connection  with  work 
seeking  would  help  lessen  the  waste  due  both  to  job  hunting  and 
to  misemployment.  No  little  addition  to  the  volume  of  unemploy- 
ment comes  from  what  W.  H.  Beveridge,  director  of  the  labor 
exchanges,  calls  "  qualitative  maladjustment."  No  more  promis- 
ing institution  than  the  public  school  exists  to  undertake  the  task 
of  qualitative  vocational  adjustment.  The  question  arises  as  to 
whether  the  public-school  system  would  best  undertake  alone  to 
deal  with  the  start  in  vocation,  or  leave  it  to  other  agencies,  while 
reserving  for  itself  the  task  of  providing  for  needs  which  arise  in 
the  course  of  employment,  such  as  further  training  opportunities. 
It  is  submitted  that  the  schools  will  have  to  concern  themselves 
actively  and  dominantly  with  every  phase  of  the  vocational  start 
in  life.  Is  the  average  school  system  ready  to  undertake  this  new 
and  enormously  difficult  business  ?  It  is  not.  Indeed,  so  little  is 
it  prepared  to  do  this  work  at  the  present  time  that  a  hasty  under- 
taking of  it  would  probably  indicate  a  lack  of  understanding.  It 
is  doubtful,  in  the  first  place,  if  a  school  department  can  alone 
effectively  organize  the  labor  market  for  young  workers.  The  pro- 
nouncements on  this  subject  by  Scotch  and  English  authorities  are 


716  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

convincing.  On  the  whole,  experience  seems  to  support  the  propo- 
sition that  the  school  system  is  not  the  most  suitable  agency  to 
attempt  the  organization  of  the  labor  market  for  the  young  and 
the  correlative  proposition,  that  the  carrying  on  of  juvenile  employ- 
ment agencies  without  control  over  them  by  the  school  is  not  in 
the  best  interests  of  the  children. 

It  is  assumed  that  work  seeking  in  this  country  will  more  and 
more  be  under  the  direction  of  the  public  through  state  or  possi- 
bly municipal  agencies ;  for  we  are  almost  the  only  advanced 
industrial  country  to  continue  the  present  demoralizing  chaos  of 
an  unorganized  labor  market.  Public  labor  bureaus,  when  rightly 
managed  and  properly  understood,  are  capable  of  considerably 
larger  services  than  labor  registration,  important  though  this  is. 
Developments  in  the  best  of  these  bureaus  in  England  and  in 
Germany  promise  a  new  type  of  civic  center  and  agency  for  indus- 
trial betterment.  Everywhere  the  best  practice  is  to  separate  the 
juvenile  from  the  adult  departments  of  these  bureaus,  and  the 
girls'  from  the  boys'  departments.  More  and  more  the  young 
work  seekers'  problems  are  being  treated  as  something  distinctly 
different  from  those  of  adults.  We  are  confronted,  then,  with  the 
need  of  not  only  organizing  placement  provisions  for  the  young, 
but,  in  addition,  a  comprehensive  instrument  of  social  and  educa- 
tional protection. 

RELATION  OF  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  TO  THE 
EMPLOYMENT  AGENCY 

The  public  school  must  remember  the  fact  that  it  is,  primarily, 
an  educational  institution  with  social  aims.  What  a  century  of 
child-welfare  effort  and  experience  has  taught  the  friends  of 
working-children,  the  schools  can,  least  of  all,  afford  to  ignore. 
More  than  any  other  institution,  the  school  must  stand  for  a  high 
minimum  of  protection  for  all  children.  It  is  not  to  the  credit  of 
our  schools  that,  on  the  whole,  they  have  been  unaware  of  a  situa- 
tion which  many  an  employer  has  known  for  some  time,  and  this 
is,  the  economic  uselessness  of  children  from  fourteen  to  sixteen. 
Schools  have  sometimes  been  willing  to  plunge  into  small  or  large 


SCHOOL  AND  EMPLOYMENT  717 

employment  schemes  as  if  full-time  work  were  the  right  thing 
for  growing  children. 

Of  the  public  schools,  more  than  of  any  other  institution,  public 
or  private,  we  have  the  right  to  expect  a  clear  vision  and  a  deter- 
mined stand  with  respect  to  the  interests  of  childhood  and  youth. 
Private  societies  do  and  may,  by  way  of  experiment,  make  con- 
cessions and  compromises  in  order  to  carry  out  their  various  pur- 
poses, but  in  the  practice  of  the  public-school  system,  we  look  for 
exemplification  of  the  permanent  principles  which  should  control 
all  the  activities  in  which  young  people  find  themselves. 

There  are  three  distinct  aspects  of  the  problem  of  adolescent 
employment :  the  educational,  economic,  and  social.  Through  ex- 
tension of  vocational-training  opportunities,  and  especially  through 
the  provision  for  prevocational  schools  which,  when  their  purposes 
are  better  understood,  will  become  self-discovery  schools  and,  as 
such,  afford  young  people  and  their  teachers  a  most  important 
basis  for  vocational  guidance,  the  schools  are  beginning  to  deal 
with  the  first  of  the  three  aspects  named. 

As  public  labor  offices  grow  in  number,  the  economic  side  of  the 
problem  will  be  given  at  least  a  preliminary  treatment.  This  will 
be  not  more  than  preliminary,  however,  for  a  juvenile  employment 
department  is,  notwithstanding  general  opinion,  a  placement  agency 
only  secondarily.  It  is  in  facing  the  third  or  social  aspect  of  the 
entire  problem  that  we  find  the  basis  for  satisfactory  organization. 

IMPORTANCE  OF  DEVELOPING  RIGHT  ATTITUDE 

This  proposed  social  basis  for  juvenile  labor  organization  is 
intended  not  so  much  to  protect  the  boy  worker  or  girl  worker 
under  eighteen  against  employers  as  against  themselves.  The 
greatest  difficulty  in  dealing  with  the  boy  who  is  about  to  leave 
school  for  work  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  regards  himself  as  a  worker 
who  has  outgrown  the  learner.  Not  until  disastrous  experience  has 
overtaken  many  of  these  children  do  they  begin  to  realize  how 
much  a  learning  attitude  would  have  meant  in  building  a  career. 
A  large  part  of  this  difficulty  is  due  to  leaving  the  question  of 
the  boy's  future  unconsidered  until  school-leaving  time. 


718  READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

As  we  do  things  piecemeal  in  this  country,  we  are  likely  to  find 
in  a  number  of  places  a  vocation  bureau  in  the  schools,  with  per- 
haps a  number  of  vocational-training  classes ;  a  separate  employ- 
ment bureau  of  the  city  or  state  to  which  boys  are  sent  or  drift ; 
and  perhaps  a  private  or  semipublic  advisory  body  with  no  real 
power,  making  futile  efforts  to  help  the  troubled  children  with  a 
disorganized  machinery  of  service. 

We  need  to  write  into  the  law-establishing  labor  offices  that  a 
juvenile  department  shall  be  managed  by  a  central  executive  com- 
mittee appointed  by  the  school  system ;  which  committee  shall  be 
made  up  of  school  people,  employers,  social  workers,  and  employees, 
to  advise  as  to  the  school  vocational-guidance  and  training  activi- 
ties, on  the  one  hand,  and  manage  the  occupational  research  and 
placement  supervision  activities  of  the  labor  bureau,  on  the  other. 
This  committee  should  be  empowered,  through  health  officers  and 
other  trained  specialists,  to  study  children  ;  to  take  them  out  of 
work  places,  if  need  be ;  and  through  scientific  investigations  to 
list  occupations  from  the  viewpoint  of  opportunity  as  well  as  their 
manifold  reactions  on  the  worker.  Children  under  sixteen  are  to 
be  under  training,  part  time  at  least,  until  the  public  is  ready  to 
care  for  their  entire  fourteen-to-sixteen-year  period. 

From  what  has  been  said  regarding  the  duties  of  a  juvenile 
employment  agency,  with  its  suggested  twofold  powers,  namely, 
close  supervision  of  the  vocational  activities  of  the  school  system 
and  control  over  placement  and  its  associated  features,  it  is  clear 
that  "employment  agency"  is  a  misnomer.  Perhaps  a  better  name 
for  such  a  body  and  agency  would  be  the  "vocational-service 
bureau."  Service,  intelligent,  deliberate,  and  coordinated  with  the 
work  of  all  existing  upbuilding  agencies,  is  indeed  the  main  busi- 
ness of  an  employment  office  for  minors.  There  are  problems 
connected  with  such  employment  of  the  greatest  importance  to  the 
public  and  on  these  we  have  little  or  no  information.  These  are 
the  amount  of  juvenile  underemployment,  misemployment,  and 
unemployment ;  the  causes  of  maladjustment,  and  how  far  train- 
ing and  what  kind  of  training  can  lessen  these  causes  ;  and  the 
specific,  thoroughly  analyzed,  requirements  of  the  occupations.  To 
enlighten  the  public  as  to  these  matters  and  secure  such  constructive 


SCHOOL  AND  EMPLOYMENT  719 

legislation  as  may  be  necessary  is  perhaps  the  most  far-reaching 
work  which  such  a  service  bureau  can  do.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
conceive  that  a  public  enterprise  which  combines  help  to  groping 
youth  with  social  planning  will  in  time  have  laid  foundations  of  a 
service  which  will  safeguard,  strengthen,  equip,  and  inspire  boys 
and  girls  for  their  appropriate  work  to  an  extent  nowhere  as  yet 
to  be  found. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Edith,  485 
Ability,  varieties  of,  387 
Advisers  of  youth,  95 
American  society,  5 
Apprenticeship,  3 
Architect,  the,  515 
Aves,  Ernest,  602 
Ayres,  Leonard  P.,  141,  150 

Beveridge,  W.  H.,  715 

Birmingham,  679 

Blind-alley  employment,  36,  42 

Bloomfield,  Meyer,  295,  679,  710 

Bonser,  Frederick  G.,  109,  301 

Bookbinding,  598 

Bookbinding  trades,  666 

Boot  and  shoe  manufacture,  582 

Boston,  117 

Boston  School  Committee,  86 

Boy  labor,  41 

"  Bread  and  butter  "  motives,  4 

Breckinridge,  S.  P.,  314,  485 

Brennan,  John  V.,  Supt.,  75 

Brooks,  Stratton  D.,  Pres.,  83 

Building  trades,  London,  602 

Candy  manufacture,  580 

Carlyle,  12,  13 

Central  care  committee,  680 

Census  of  1900,  22 

Characteristics,  371 

Chatfield,  George  H.,  292 

Chicago,  55,  485 

Chicago  School  of  Civics  and  Philan- 

throphy,  491 

Choice  of  Employment  Act,  679 
Cincinnati,  129,  220 
Clothing  industry,  590 
Collet,  Miss,  647,  666 
Colleton,  Eleanor  M.,  117 
Commissioner  of  Education,  Report  of 

1909,  21 

Compulsory  Education  Law,  488 
Condon,  Randall  J.,  221 
Conservation  of  human  resources,  69 
Constant  occupations,  145 
Cooley,  Prof.,  23 


Counselor,  the,  110-116 
Cultural  education,  84 

Davis,  Anne,  542 
Davis,  Bessie  D.,  190 
Davis,  Jesse  B.,  137 
Dearie,  N.  B.,  32 
Democratic  society,  8 
Department-store  work,  578 
Des  Moines,  235 
Dewey,  John,  233 
Dewsbury,  705,  706 
Diagnoses,  99 

Differentiation  of  course,  359 
Dodge,  Harriet  Hazen,  571 
Dressmaking,  584  * 

Dyer,  F.  B.,  221 

Edinburgh  School  Board,  542 
Eliot,  Pres.-Emeritus  Chas.  W.,  i 
Elwell,  George,  290 
Employment  bargain,  714 
Employment  certificates,  70 
Employment  of  Children  Act,  709 
Energizing  work,  381 
Enervating  work,  381 
English  system,  714 
Errand  girl,  588 
Experimentation,  68 

Factory  surgeons,  704 
Fall  River,  148,  149 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  8 

Girls'  Trade  Education  League,  87 

Goldmark,  Josephine,  507 

Goldwasser,  Dist.  Supt.  I.  E.,  200 

Goodwin,  Frank  P.,  129 

Grand  Rapids  High  School,  137 

Grocer,  the,  523 

Gruenberg,  B.  C.,  304 

Guidance,  positive  and  negative,  49 

Hanus,  Prof.  Paul  H.,  92 
Hanus  Report,  291,  297 
Hatch,  Henry,  298 
Health  guidance,  710 


721 


722 


READINGS  IN  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 


Helper's  notebook,  682 
Henderson,  Prof.  E.  N.,  56 
Henry  Booth  House,  497 
Henry  Street  Settlement,  322 
High  School  of  Commerce,  87 
High  School  of  Practical  Arts,  87 

Individual  differences,  101 
Individual,  study  of  the,  131 
Interests,  significance  of,  386 
Iowa,  234 
Iowa  high-school  pupils,  172 

Jackson,  Cyril,  424 

James,  Prof.,  106 

Juvenile  Court,  489 

Juvenile  labor  organization,  717 

Juvenile  Employment  League,  680 

Keppel,  Dean  Frederick  P.,  346 
Kerschensteiner,  Dr.,  447 
King,  Prof.  Irving,  172 
Kitson,  H.  D.,  103 
Knit-goods  making,  592 

Labor  exchanges,  715 
Laissez  faire,  13 
Laundry  work,  594 
Lewis,  Ervin  E.,  234 
Life-career,  2,  3 
Life-career  motive,  i 
London,  42 

Lord,  Everett  W.,  28,  29 
Los  Angeles,  148,  149 
Lovejoy,  Owen  R.,  290 

Machinist,  the,  534 
Maclaurin,  Pres.  Richard  C.,  13 
Manchester,  148,  149 
Massachusetts  Commission,  416 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology, 

15 

Mead,  Prof.  George  Herbert,  43 
Mechanistic  conception,  107 
Medical  supervision,  708 
Medieval  character  of  school,  52 
Miller,  Wm.  T.,  121 
Millinery,  586 
Mine  Workers'  Union,  246 
Misplacement,  33 
Monitory  vocational  guidance,  108 
Montgomery,  Louise,  454 
Motivation,  61 
Motive,  the  problem  of,  63 
Motive,    life-career,    i,    4,    5,    6,    n, 

134 


National  Child  Labor  Committee,  228 
Newman,  Sir  George,  705 

Occupational  groups,  24 
Occupations  of  father,  162,   163,  166, 
167,  168,  170 

Packing  and  labeling,  600 
Paper-box  making,  596 
Parental  school,  491 
Parsons,  Prof.  Frank,  29 
Part-time  schools,  2 
Permanent  census  board,  292 
Placement  bureau,  231 
Popular  government,  44 
Practical  arts,  362 
Professional  schools,  14 
Prosser,  C.  A.,  352 
Psychic  measurements,  20 
Psychological  tests,  104 
Psychology,  56,  57 
Psychology,  the  newer,  61 
Public-employment  offices,  714 

Questionnaire,  190 

Reserve  of  boy  labor,  40 
Reserve  of  casual  labor,  37 
Retardation,  151 
Richards,  Dr.  Charles  R.,  504 
Roberts,  Dr.  Peter,  29 
Rural  schools,  7 

Sage  Foundation,  141 

St.  Paul,  city  of,  24 

Schmidlapp  Bureau,  221 

Schneider,  Dean  Herman,  368,  379 

School,  the,  43 

School  care  committee,  682 

Scientific  measurements,  108 

Secondary  education,  66 

Self-discovery  schools,  717 

Shrigley,  Mr.,  Pres.  Williamson  Free 

School  of  Mechanical  Trades,  3 
Sioux  City,  235 
Social  vision,  712 
Somerville,  Mass.,  190 
Spaulding,  Supt.  F.  E.,  69 
Stationery  trades,  666 
Students,  professional,  2 
Successful  counseling,  no 

Talbert,  Ernest  L.,  396 
Teachers  College,  100,  102 
Telephone  operating,  557 
Thorndike,  Prof.  E.  L.,  96,  386 


INDEX 


723 


Trade  School  for  Girls,  88,  89 
Twelfth  census,  142 

University  Settlement,  398 
Unskilled  boy  labor,  36 

Van  Denburg,  Dr.,  100,  172 

Van  Kleeck,  Miss  Mary,  294 

Vocation,  choice  of,  135 

Vocation  Bureau,  86 

Vocational  adjustments,  31 

Vocational  advice,  90 

Vocational  adviser,  451 

Vocational  aptitude,  104 

Vocational  assistant,  89 

Vocational  counsel,  22 

Vocational  counselors,  93,  109 

Vocational  direction,  83,  85 

Vocational    Guidance    Association    of 

New  York,  289 
Vocational-guidance  department,  69, 70, 


Vocational-guidance  movement,  69,  72, 

73 

Vocational  information,  103 
Vocational  motive,  14 
Vocational  outlook,  30 
Vocational  placement,  83 
Vocational  preferences  of  boys  (table 

of),  26 

Vocational  service,  711 
Vocational  Service  Bureau,  718 

Ward,  Prof.  Lester  F.,  20,  22 
Washington,  148,  149 
Wasteful  recruiting,  32 
Weidensall,  Dr.  Jean,  228 
Wentworth,  Laura  F.,  124 
Wile,  Ira  S.,  330 
Women's  clothing  trades,  647 
Woodward  High  School,  137 
Woolley,  Helen  Thompson,  132,  220 
Woods,  Erville  B.,  19 

Young,  Supt.,  400 


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